I have a home built OpenBuilds-based Ox for the last three years. Upgrading to OF (and apparently have until July or August to think things through). I am using the OB Blackbox controller with OB Control and Universal G-Code sender. I’m quite used to this system and in reading through a lot of the forum information I’m wondering if I might want to think about using the Blackbox controller instead of the OF/Buildbiotics controller. Anybody using the Blackbox and willing to provide any perspective on this option? I’ve searched the forum but not seeing any posts addressing this question.
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I have the same question but no experience with the Blackbox controller.
This is a great question as I have the OF BlackBox also and the spark Concepts V4 controllers.
Short answer: Use the Onefinity controller.
Long answer: I have a Workbee with the BlackBox controller. I also use the OpenBuilds Control software. I ran it until I got my Onefinity Woodworker.
While it makes it easy to wire up, I’ve not seen anything function-wise the BB controller can do the OF controller cannot do since both are GRBL based. IMHO, you lose far more than you gain by using the BB controller, such as stall homing.
Of course the OF controller doesn’t need a computer tethered to it, making it easier set up, use less space, etc.
This is also a disadvantage. The OpenBuilds Control software is pretty good and steadily improving via frequent updates. There are several good features that OF could adopt but OF’s software updates are less frequent because of the controller.
In all, using the OF controller is definitely the way to go.
Eric
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Thanks Eric. It is good to hear some Pros and Cons on these controllers.
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