New Project - Universal Adapter

OpenGlow Control Board
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I am starting work on a new project creating a board that will act as an interface between the Glowforge’s proprietary hardware and common 3rd party CNC driver boards.

General idea is a replacement board for the existing control PCB to provide simple terminals to connect to the fans, steppers and laser controls. This would then be connected to any of the many available boards that run GRBL or Marlin or whatever. It will also have the option to install a small SoC board like a RPI Zero 2 W (or similar) to get access to the cameras and lights, etc.

I’m looking for input from the community to see what features and capabilities there is interest in.

Thoughts?

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A cable, bus or some flavor of port that would allow connecting to the control boars EXTERNALLY so that cooling, debris built up, trouble shooting etc. would not require constantly digging into the enclosure would be nice :grinning_face: . Also, although you haven’t mentioned it, would be happy to donate $ to help offset costs…

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My intent is to keep the ability to use the internal cameras, and those run on very high speed signals that are picky about how/where they are ran. So, for the adapter board at least, it will need to remain inside. The controller/driver board you connect to it could certainly go where ever you wish (inside, outside, in another room :grin: ).

To your point, a conformal coating would probably be a good idea on the finished product, as that is notably missing on the factory boards. At least on any of the units I have seen in the wild.