So I was reading John Lauer ​'s excellent post about the 3040 conversion,

CAD & CAM Tool Chain ChiliPeppr
1

So I was reading @jlauer ​’s excellent post about the 3040 conversion, very exciting and at a price point where I am sorely tempted. However: I’m completely new to the whole cnc / ChilliPeppr / TinyG universe so I might be completely off base here, but would something like this be any option: http://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/usb-to-db25-adapter-uses-grbl-for-parallel-port-cnc-communication/

And so skip the internal modifications, or am I missing a trick in the whole ChilliPeppr - TinyG chain?

2

Interesting. I’ve never heard of this.

3

Discovered via my inherent laziness… :slight_smile: First thought was that “there must be a parallel converter for this” and there it was.

4

You could try to do that, but here’s some thoughts.

  1. It would seem to cost the same or more money in the end, so why bother.
  2. It feels like you’ll have buffering problems and will get choppiness and/or lost steps which will ruin your job.
  3. You’re still stuck with a 16-bit CNC platform on Grbl vs a 32-bit CNC platform with TinyG so you lose out on all the modern features of a more powerful controller and there’s no cost advantage.
5

Thanks for the info!

On the cost I’m not so sure: I’d redesign the parallel converter with a $6 32u4 and some bread board, which I reckon would come in at around $15 max. The TinyG seems to be significantly more expensive even in shield form.

The buffering and 16 vs 32 bit issues sound like more of problem. I don’t understand the domain enough though :slight_smile:

Well an interesting thought exercise anyway. I look forward to your future mods on the 3040!