Does Marlin have a feature for TMC stepper drivers connected to the extruder where it could turn up the heat or slow down the print in the event of skipped steps? I think if there was such a feature then installing a single TMC stepper driver may simplify temperature settings quite a bit since the printer could detect how much heat it needs for the filament at each of its potential print speeds. It should of course also send a little message over the USB/wifi connection if it is printing via a connection so that the control software there can have feedback.
Repetier can read an encoder and slow down print speed to attempt to recover a jam, then pause if the jam won’t go away. Not sure if anyone auto-adjusts based on extruder stall detect. Prusas these days will pause the print on XYZ stall.
We were working on this with the mechaduino drivers at some point. Since Klipper actually has support for multiple MCUs, we had considered putting one mechaduino motor X, Y, Z, E, and then building another small microcontroller for the print head with USB + 24v for temp/heater, etc.
Everything would have essentially been USB endpoints.
ATTiny could practically handle the hotend zone, I think. Of course there are many chips under a buck. Something like a USB endpoint is one of my goals for a stepper controller addon board. I2c is another.
I2C was meant for close-quarters chip communication. If you did I2C with any kind of length on it, I’d probably do something like differential I2C. Or, like we were doing - something with USB native since it’s already using differential pairs.
Don’t get me wrong - I2C can possibly work at some distances it wasn’t designed for. I’ve got an I2C temp sensor that’s on a 6ft lead, and it works. - just, it works at the slowest I2C clock.
I think some I2C need an external clock…which sounds less I2C…to get high speeds. Adafruit has a nice collection of info on it. Also, not all I2C devices are designed for higher speeds. I do not know if I will research more if I will just try it and find out and then research and learn. Sometimes you just have to take action even if it is wrong.