Creality confirms that future Ender 3 3D printers will feature 32-bit motherboards

[WYP]

A neat upgrade for new Ender 3 purchasers.



Read more about Creality 3D updating its new Ender 3/Ender 3 Pro printers with 32-bit motherboards.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Surprised they haven't gone to 64bit arm? I would have assumed they were already on a arm 64bit architecture.

Then again I know next to nothing on 3D printers

 

[Warchild]

Surprised they haven't gone to 64bit arm? I would have assumed they were already on a arm 64bit architecture.

Then again I know next to nothing on 3D printers

I guess because 3D printers are no where near needing the advantages of 64bit arm right now. I see it as an extremely light weight operating system which some have got working from a simple Arduino.

 

[grec]

Not gonna lie I'm surprised there was performance issues with the 8-bit parts, G-Code/NC-Code is fairly simple all things considered and you could definitely encode it purely in 7/8-bit ASCII chars, I guess it's the long strings causing issues.

But yeah, you can get realtime 32-bit ARM embedded processors for about £1 a piece if going for a Cortex-M3 models or similar (I assume this is using the popular STM32 family). Generally current 64-bit ARM processors are sold in vastly more expensive complete SoCs, and not really meant for realtime processes ("Really Fast" processors are often actually too slow or inconsistent for things like controlling machinery in the aspects that really count; latency and determinism)

 

[WYP]

Surprised they haven't gone to 64bit arm? I would have assumed they were already on a arm 64bit architecture.

Then again I know next to nothing on 3D printers

There isn't much need for extra performance. G.code is simple, but when people start printing as fast as they can they can become a limiting factor. All it does is tell the motors how much to spin and how hot to make the hot end. It's not that complex. 64-bit is crazy overkill.

I guess because 3D printers are no where near needing the advantages of 64bit arm right now. I see it as an extremely light weight operating system which some have got working from a simple Arduino.

Exactly

Not gonna lie I'm surprised there was performance issues with the 8-bit parts, G-Code/NC-Code is fairly simple all things considered and you could definitely encode it purely in 7/8-bit ASCII chars, I guess it's the long strings causing issues.

But yeah, you can get realtime 32-bit ARM embedded processors for about £1 a piece if going for a Cortex-M3 models or similar (I assume this is using the popular STM32 family). Generally current 64-bit ARM processors are sold in vastly more expensive complete SoCs, and not really meant for realtime processes ("Really Fast" processors are often actually too slow or inconsistent for things like controlling machinery in the aspects that really count; latency and determinism)

TBH, 8-bit only limits things if you want to print fast. It's a common upgrade for those who are changing their motherboards. If they are already updating the stepper drivers, they might as well go 32-bit.

It's the difference between using something that "good enough", and using something that is fast enough to (pretty much) never become an issue.

 

[Kleptobot]

I've dablled a bit with CNC and writing motion controllers. In my experience the limitation with the 8 bit controllers is that most of the time they run a form of GRBL which has some non asynchronous functions, that block the thread. Which slows things down. Also most 8 bit hardware has pretty modest clock speeds which doesn't help things.