Hello Community!
I’m looking at how to best use two oDrives to run a Hangprinter (cable driven 3d printer with four motors that wind cables).
I’ve previously used four Mechaduinos controlled by step/dir plus a few commands on the i2c bus. I’ve never had problems with step/dir, but I want to know if I’m missing out on something.
I’ve always heard that step/dir is primitive and fragile. What exactly are the drawbacks of step/dir? What would be a better alternative?
I need fast and accurate movement, following weird non-linear trajectories very closely. I’m curious to hear about your favourite interfaces since I have no experience with anything other than step/dir (and that one seems to be no expert’s favourite). I have a vauge feeling that CAN bus is many experts’ favourite, but I don’t know what advantages it could give me.
I’m free to change the master microcontroller’s firmware, or control the oDrives directly from a laptop, or even buffer trajectories on the oDrive and broadcast a timing tick from a master microcontroller. Don’t hesitate to suggest things that requires changing the Hangprinter’s control architecture or doing some programming on the oDrive firmware if it might give significant advantages.