ESP32/S2/S3 LinuxCNC Controller (6 axis hardware step gen), USB plug-and-play

Haha 10 bucks IC. Nah, you know your stuff!
Thanks for the advice, understood and taken on board

Yeah it's a nice catch all for "figure it out later"

Very interesting work.

I think what is needed is more complete board options, like Mesa. So an ESP32 based board with protected 24v GPIO etc would be great.

Something that a relative novice can deal with, without having to design or build their own PCB. Parallel port is harder and harder to get, and I think step generation hardware is the way to go anyway. 

I can do some basic PCB stuff, but time wise it's not worth it for one machine.  I have some machines, like a lathe, I don't really want to spend $300 for mesa cards (shipping to Australia from US is expensive) and something cheaper would be great.

I'll be in touch, I'll catch you via your g'hub eventually. Let me have the shanghai office leaking the high speed timers and parallel io counters in low level. Let's burn those P4 cores when they come out. "Optimization"...

Peace. Thumbs up for the initiative!

Thanks, that's the intention. Always good to have options for LinuxCNC.

I won't be open sourcing the hardware designs as it'll be commercial interest but the software will remain open. Although, none of it is really rocket science, EMI compliant board layout is ultimately what would be protected.
Will try to ensure it's very cost effective.

Ease of use and setup will be a priority.

Have a working modern SMT line so can assemble them and maintain quality control and keep cost balances.

Plan to ship batches to regional centres if there's sufficient demand.

That's one of those - build it and they'll come!

I'm actually one of those who didn't want to dosh out the $500 entry cost to motion control a retrofit, not knowing it would even work to begin with. Add the fact that I'm half-a-world away from the providers (add in the +80% import tax + transport). And so settled for a cost efffective fpga maintained by a member here TOLP2 (Peter-van-Tol). Another of those God-like skillset member.

Bet there are countless others in similar situations. "Options", another infamous good sounding word!! You said it!

Yeah I believe so. Will have to see...
Interesting. That's two people confirming similar issues to what I've experienced with sourcing motion controllers and retrofits.

PS: RPI 5 runs LinuxCNC considerably better than RPI4. Very snappy.