Motherboard Upgrades?
In considering printer performance I've been talking with folks about the the potential of upgrading the Mainboard on my Prusa Mk3s.
I found a company that claims to offer a replacement with a 32-bit processor.
I've had folks tell me this brand of board is nice, but I'm betting the Einsy Rambo firmware isn't exactly going to be compatible with it. Which would mean I'm completely on my own in the firmware support department.
So I'm just curious at this point, but has anyone attempted to upgrade their mainboard before, or even specifically with this particular example?
You might ask why, and that's a fair question. I think my main goal would simply to ensure that the Einsy Rambo isn't a performance bottleneck.
Aaron
RE: Motherboard Upgrades?
I tried a BTT board on my old Ender 3 Pro, and found them to be not too bad, but not without its issues.
Unless you are very good at writing Marlin Firmware I would avoid this upgrade on a £700 printer, custom firmware can be finicky and is a steep learning cuve.
Removing a proven/solid/well supported board with 24/7 support from Prusa and going to a chinese supported board would not be my first choice. I know there are "apparent" performance gains to be had, but I have never found my MK3 to be lacking in the quality department.
I would not be surprised if a 32 bit variant of the einsy board was in the pipeline for the MK3, with the MK4 being rumoured. (Especially considering the Mini is 32 Bit).
Chances are there will be a MK3S+ to MK4 upgrade kit at some point.
I would be interested to hear about your bottlenecks, as I am finding my mk3 pretty much flawless, my only difficulty has been supports, but with some trial and error they are improving.
Tank you very much!
RE: Motherboard Upgrades?
the BTT Board is reputed to have options for quieter stepper drivers (TMC2208) and the faster 32 bit processor is reputed to be able to handle a higher microstep ratio than the 8 bit Einsy. but as mentioned above, moving away from the Proven Prusa Firmware could be an issue. because the user needs to tune the 32 bit firmware to suit the Prusa Hardware. there are some folk who say they have successfully done the upgrade, but I have not tried...
the big bonus of the
BIGTREETECH BTT002 V1.0 Control Board 32Bit for Prusa i3 MK3
is that the board is populated with Prusa compatible sockets and the same board foot print as the Prusa, where as other 32 bit boards have a different footprint and need conversion cables to match the different sockets.
regards Joan
I try to make safe suggestions,You should understand the context and ensure you are happy that they are safe before attempting to apply my suggestions, what you do, is YOUR responsibility. Location Halifax UK
RE: Motherboard Upgrades?
GitHub - bigtreetech/BTT002-V1.0
Here is the GITHub page for the board.
There really does not seem to be a lot of info available on this board and the BTT supplied FW has not been updated in over a year.
Doesn't seem to have been widely adopted (If at all), it is my opinion that there is a very good reason for this. That being the 8-bit Einsy board works very well and is solid as a rock. The Prusa Firmware is superb and is regularly upgraded and well supported.
I would see this very much as a downgrade for the above reasons, it could be argued it turns your genuine MK3 into a clone.
Tank you very much!
RE: Motherboard Upgrades?
Well I do appreciate the input, and yes, the lack of firmware support is probably the biggest stumbling block here. I'm comfortable using the Bondtech branch of the firmware as it supports the extruder, hot-end, and thermistor combo I'm using, but that's about as exotic as I've gone.
I too hope/wish Prusa comes up with a more powerful motherboard for the system and develops a way to retrofit it to older systems. That would be very nice and the ideal scenario.
For now, I think I'll ponder this a bit more. Replacing the board really wouldn't be that hard as an experiment and easily reversed, provided I didn't burn out the steppers using it.
Aaron
RE: Motherboard Upgrades?
If you want quiet (nearly silent) steppers, do the drop in replacement Moon stepper upgrade. You can search it with google on this forum.