Making your own powerful Controller on the cheap side

[EliasPolitis]

I just (re)read this part of the thread.

@ErikJanssen

Maybe you would want to know the policy of Inventables for DIY X-Controllers. Will Easel be available for non-inventables controllers in future?

@PhilJohnson

I’d have to say, I’d inventables ever disallowed the Arduino to connect with easel, that would be a turning point in my support.

In case both Inventables’ and DIY controllers share the same hw (Atmega 328) and same sw (GRBL), the only way for Inventables to lock your DIY controller out of Easel would be by accepting their own init string and not the generic one.

I don’t believe they would do it for 3 reasons:

• it does not fit their business ethics
• it would be fairly easy for someone to find the acceptable init string and insert it in their GRBL at compile time (or even load Inventables’ hex)
• they want people to use Easel cause it’s a strong brand for them (I suspect they paid big for the domain)

@PhilJohnson

We have asked before for a version that people who have the Arduino setup could use without buying everything and they said no.

The reason they said no (again, a personal assumption) is not because they would sell fewer X-Controllers, but because it would be a nightmare to support. (*)

As an analogy imagine what would happen if Apple unlocked OSX for any x86 hardware.

“Hello, my system doesn’t go to suspend mode”
“Hello, my graphics card 3d acceleration does not seem to function”
“Hello, while booting I noticed that someone had taken a second bite out of the apple”

EDIT:
(*) in case of BYOC(ontroller) . Or extra overhead in terms of logistics in case of a drivers only scenario. They currently support two setups (Gshield and X-Controller) and promote only one: the X-Controller (there’s no Gshield option when ordering a new X-Carve). So while they are shifting from 2 to 1 controllers, you’d be asking them to change their strategy and go from 2 to 3.