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Duet Wifi controller board

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by danzca6, Aug 17, 2016.

  1. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    Anyone look at this new controller board coming out? The preorder ends next week it looks like. I have been going back and forth about upgrading the Robo's Arduino and RAMPS combo. I really like the touch screen LCD that can go with it and I am already using the IR height sensor. If I don't use it on the Robo, I might use it on another project, but it really looks like a great board. The drivers used in it are also of interest to me. Let me know your thoughts and if you have purchased it for preorder. I am curious what the other brains on this site think of it. If I end up using it on the Robo, I will definitely post about the mod.

    https://www.duet3d.com/index.php?route=common/home#preorder
     
  2. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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  3. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    @danzca6 The developer community for reprap firmware is tiny, but having a 32-bit board and firmware and a built in web-server is not a bad thing.
     
  4. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah...David Crocker comes out with some amazing things. I really liked the IR height sensor he designed and Jim cloned. So I'm sure this is going to be a something worth watching.
     
  5. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    @elmoret from Filastruder.com just sent me a link to his use of the DuetWifi on his BigBox. Folks, after reading that, this sounds amazing. So yeah...I need to do this upgrade to the Robo since I am totally geeking out about this now. Looks like the batch I would get in would be awhile before I get it, but will make sure to do a full writeup of it here when I get it. You can preorder through Filastruder.com and they will take care of the US orders.

    https://forum.e3d-online.com/index.php?threads/bigbox-duetwifi-controller.1766/
     
  6. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    So after some research...I think I can forgo getting the LCD. I have some old tablets and smart phones that are all wifi that I could use instead of mounting an LCD onto the ROBO with this controller. That still gives me a color touch screen like the PanelDue. They even say on their site that an LCD really isn't needed. I'm going to start that way and see. Saving a few coins is always a nice thing.

     
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  7. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    So I was given this link and wanted to share with you guys. This is what the web interface looks like for the Duet. Doesn't look bad at all. I could probably live with just using an old tablet with this just fine. Can be an alternate for octoprint. I guess it will do a camera but it has to be an IP camera since there isn't a way to connect a regular camera to the Duet via USB. Small minus over using a Pi, but I'm ok with that. Now, why can't I just hit commit on the shopping cart?

    https://www.duet3d.com/DuetWebControlSim/
     
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  8. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    OK. I decided to go for it. I ordered the DuetWifi and the PT100 daughter board from Think3dPrint3d Ltd. The preorder cost with shipping was 129 GBP = 173.04 US at the time of purchase. That was about $5 more than google told me, but not too bad...thank you Brexit! Still not a cheap upgrade by any means but what the heck. The daughter board isn't currently carried anywhere else and it is unknown the timing of them being available compared to the shipping of the preorders of the DuetWifi. So I found it best to just order it with the board. I am in batch 4 that is currently on schedule to ship September 14th. There are still openings for batches 4 and 5. Preorders end August 23. I heard there is going to be a likely increase after the preorder period of as much as 20%, but that is still to be seen for sure. I think the preorder price is pretty fair when you compare it to a RAMBo or other high end controller board. And yes, I am sure Tom Sanladerer will do a review of this board.

    With this board you do not need the E3D amplifier board. The daughter board takes care of that and allows for two PT100 sensors to be attached with either a 2 wire or 4 wire configuration. That will allow for dual extruders and I think there is room for another daughter board to give you 4 extruders using the PT100. WOW! I think with an expansion board, this thing does up to 7 extruders. INSANE! I read that depending on the length of your wire can cause additional resistance and the 2 wire connector might give you issues with readings depending on the quality of your wires and connectors. The 4 wire method sounds to be a safer bet and I plan on adopting that technique with mine.

    I will be ordering the E3D PT100 sensor and new V6 block for the sensor from Filastruder.com (Tim @elmoret ). He almost has my arm twisted to get the 7" PanelDue to go with it. I am on the fence at the moment. Being a color touch screen that I could easily design a mount for the top front of the Robo lid that I can unplug as needed for lid removal sounds pretty slick. I need my wallet to cool a couple days before I decide. My other option as mentioned above is to use an old Samsung S3 that I have or one of my daughters older tablets for the bigger screen size.

    Yes I had to pay 10 GBP for shipping and that is to get the product from the UK to Tim. He then ships it to the US addresses for free along with any accessories you ordered from him to go along with the DuetWifi. His accessory prices are nearly the same as what you get from ordering with the board out of the UK. Tim has been great with taking all of my questions and I encourage you to contact him if you have any questions about the DuetWifi since he has been an early beta tester. He is helping with the distribution out of his passion for this project and not for profiting off of it. That has to tell you something about Tim and how this product holds up to other controller boards. I caution you about looking around on his site because you may not be able to stop yourself from adding more items to your cart.

    I'll be doing a full write-up on this board once I get it and install it on the Robo. It will take a bit to figure out the wiring and firmware settings, but I am really excited to get started. The new Super quiet TMC2660 stepper drivers that come integrated with this board and all of the other features I feel will make a great upgrade, but I will let you know if I find it to be worth the price. Will it make the Robo quieter? Will print quality improve? Things like that. Since it can also take a 24V input, that might be another upgrade I try in the future along with seeing how changing from 1.8 degree steppers to 0.9 degree steppers since this board can do up to 256 microstepping. I have a long list of what ifs with the Robo to see how you can make it better and are those upgrades worth the price.
     
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  9. WZ9V

    WZ9V Active Member

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    I have a Duet 0.8.5 I used in a Delta. Nice board and David supports it well. Very different from the Marlin firmware though. It uses G-Code for configuration which can be a bit of a steep learning curve but once you get used to it it's really easy to change stuff. No IDE and recompilation to worry about. The web interface can even do firmware updates and is great to use for prints, no need to swap SD cards because it has decent transfer speeds to the SD card.

    If it were not for the Delta frame being possessed (in the process of a rebuild) and not holding a calibration (not Duet's fault, it also had problems with Marlin) I wouldn't even have a Robo. I may put the 0.8.5 in my Robo once my Delta is reliable and I can afford to experiment. Right now it's my go to printer so no major upgrades except to replace broken or worn out stuff.
     
  10. WZ9V

    WZ9V Active Member

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    Try the web interface first before you decide on the LCD. You might find it unnecessary if you have a tablet since you can monitor everything via the built in web server.

    Filastruder has the LCD interface so you can always order it from them later and they ship fast.
     
  11. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    Nice to know someone else here that has used the duets. They seem to be very nice on paper so far. Yeah Tim gave me the link to the demo site for the web interface and I've been playing with different tablets I have laying around here. I may start with that for now and save some bucks. Thanks for sharing your experience with yours. I may have some questions once I get mine.
     
    #11 danzca6, Aug 31, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2016
  12. WZ9V

    WZ9V Active Member

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    I'm not an expert but I did have a 0.8.5 version running for a while. His Delta calibration is great assuming your Delta is not possessed like mine was/is. The Delta was my first kit and printer so I was in WAY over my head. I believe he was working on adding mesh leveling support. I know his Delta calibration let's you define both the number and position of the points and to set a z-offset for each point so you can really dial in the probing.

    I really miss it on my Robo but I swore I was not going to do a change like that until I fixed my Delta and had it printing well. I want to have one working printer ;-)
     
  13. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    I see Tim (@elmoret ) from Filastruder has the DuetWifi now in stock at regular price. I did save some cash getting the preorder (about $40), but I do have to wait until my 9/14 preorder date. Although I see they are still taking orders for batch 4 (~11 units left) and batch 5 (~150 units left). So you could still get one for the preorder price if it lets you finish the order on their site.
     
    #13 danzca6, Aug 31, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2016
  14. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    That's good advice. I am a bit worried about taking my Robo down for this upgrade without a backup, but my fingers will be crossed the whole time. ;)
     
  15. WZ9V

    WZ9V Active Member

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    I have a pre-order one on the way because I like the wireless capability. I've been resisting a second one which I know I will end up buying eventually. I figured I should actually hook up the one on order before buying more.

    You picked a really good 32-bit board I think you will be quite impressed. The Marlin team has done wonders but they just cannot approach what Dave and Chris have done with more processing power, memory, and high speed USB, LAN and SD Card interfaces. I did not miss the LCD and never had to remove the SD card, it was just so easy and fast to move the file to SD card in the web interface over the LAN and then kick off a SD card based print. I don't think I every even tried USB but their USB has full hardware flow control unlike the Mega and should be more reliable.

    You're making me miss using mine.
     
  16. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    What batch did you get into? I am getting the PT100 thermistor to go with the board, but I plan on doing a review of the board with everything stock on the Robo. Just replacing the Arduino/Ramps setup. Well, I will probably keep my IR plugged in as well...I just can't see myself ever wanting to go back to using the nozzle as a probe. I then have a laundry list of additions I want to do to the Robo after that is all done. I have a dBA meter so I can track if there is any significant noise reduction on the motors. I almost want to buy another DuetWifi to use for my MPCNC. One toy at a time I guess ;)

    Thanks again for your feedback on the Duet. Makes me even more excited about getting my hands on this board and trying it out.
     
  17. WZ9V

    WZ9V Active Member

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    I think I'm in batch 3. Mine will probably end up in my Delta rebuild.
     
  18. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    We had done this one:

    http://www.fastbot3d.com/

    It is nice, but hopefully the Duet ends up with more support that the Fastbot did.
    The good part was that it largely just worked as expected out of the box.
     
  19. WZ9V

    WZ9V Active Member

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    I have one of those I picked up along the way as a trade, have not tried it and it kind of seems like the whole effort is dying off. I was hoping the MachineKit port would get moving.

    The Replicape/Redeem combo seem to be the way to go or get a CRAMPS and use MachineKit. Ultimately I think these are the way to go but they are still behind on features as compared to Marlin on a Mega or Smoothie/RepRapFirmware on the M3 platform.
     
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  20. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    My duet gets delivered tomorrow. Seeing this makes me wish I already had it. They still have the discounted preproduction prices until 9/20 if your interested. The 7" panel due touchscreen looks huge. I may go with the 5.5".

     

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