Power requirements for controller

[Aiph5u (Aiph5u (not affiliated with Onefinity))]

Hey Bob,

@crz383

Thanks for that additional information. That makes things a lot clearer. I have built a couple of Debian GNU/Linux systems on Raspberry Pi 3s; so the process you’ve outlined above is certainly familiar. (I’m a retired software engineer and I’ve worked on other Linux systems.)

Then you belong to those who should have no reason to fear it

The development of Buildbotics both hardware and software goes on and this seems not easily to make its way into Onefinity Controller. Users still wait for e.g. the macros that Buildbotics implemented. I already thought that it would be worth to try recent Buildbotics Controller on Onefinity machine for some people. There is development going on. See their forum. (Compare Buildbotics Manual v1.0.2 to Buildbotics Manual v1.0).

@crz383

You said in an earlier post that “I already dived into the 1F software earlier”. Does that mean the code is open source? (Not that I necessarily want to get it or have the time to do anything with it.)

Yes, and Buildbotics Controller is a very interesting piece of software of an admirably smart person. As you know Onefinity CNC Controller is both a hardware and a software fork of Buildbotics.com Controller. Both are Open Source:

• Onefinity firmware
• Onefinity PCB layout and schematics
• Buildbotics firmware
• Buildbotics PCB layout and schematics

For a post about using and install git software locally (available for macOS, Windows and Linux/Unix) see here.

@crz383

I noticed on the Buildbotics web page for the breakout board that there’s an “old” controller (with I/O connections limited to 3.3V) and a new one (with 5V connections). Do you know which one the 1F controller uses?

3.3 V.

@crz383

Your comments about the age of the 1F system prompts me to ask: if I did do a “sudo update” of all those old packages, does the controller still run properly afterwards? Has anyone done this? (I understand why 1F wants to stick with a tried and true, if old, system and not invest the effort to test and and debug more recent changes to it.)

I am not using the Onefinity Controller at the moment, but I have the OS image mounted as loop-mount to explore it as well as Buildbotics image.

Whether the Controller still would work if you upgrade its system to a recent Raspberry Pi OS version cannot be guaranteed in advance but if you are very experienced with Debian GNU/Linux you may solve upcoming problems. I have seen on the buildbotics site there is a directory with a Raspberry Pi OS image of much more recent date in it, but I don’t know at the moment if they use it. So surely it should run – in principle. Since I have been using Debian GNU/Linux from 1995 to 2017 and am still using Debian-derivates on my production machines and am also running a lot of Raspis as thin clients here, I am not the person who would fear updating the Onefinity Controller but be aware that if you want to update it to the most recent version of Raspberry Pi OS (i.e. to benefit of security updates) you would have to make all dist-upgrades one after the other. Did you already upgrade to a new Debian release on a production machine? Or at all? It means reading carefully all the release notes and upgrade manuals - for each release that was there since they cloned the Raspberry Pi image for using it in the Onefinity Controller (this was Raspbian GNU/Linux 9.3 (“stretch”)). Next release would be “buster” (Release Notes, Upgrade Manual, Installation Manual) and be sure to be familiar with Raspberry Pi OS Upgrade Instructions, Raspberry Pi OS ‘config.txt’ file and ‘raspi-config’ documentation. During a Debian(-derived) release upgrade, you will be asked a lot of questions by the system during upgrade process, questions about packages you’ve never heard of. Sometimes it is good to have Debian Reference, Debian GNU/Linux FAQ and Debian Administrator’s Handbook at hand. You could first try it on a machine that is not a production machine. Clone the image, boot (to let the Onefinity firmware installation complete) and then you could try it. Note that the address of the repository has to be changed in /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d at a certain point when you reach a version that is not already archived.

You may also omit upgrading to the next releases (apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade) and just do an update of the package list (apt-get update) to be at least able to install additional packages of the (archived) currently running (9.3 “stretch”) system.

Further Reading

Debian GNU/Linux Documentation
Raspberry Pi OS Documentation
Buildbotics Documentation