32 bit 3D printing - What it means and when you need it

[@louis-ericsimard7659]

Hey Michael, I have been a software developer for 43 years. Usually whenever I see someone explain bit depth I see someone struggle, use confusing verbiage, or wanting to move on to another topic. On a few very rare occasions you see someone explaining it very well. You did it very well.

[@vladimirseven777]

Except he didn't. Old 8 bit processors used in consoles had 8 bit registers and 16 bit addressing so they were not actually completely 8-bit CPU. And he comparing CPU speed 100 MHz vs 16 MHz and deciding "32 bit better". Use 8-bit at 100 MHz and you will have more than enough CPU speed for printing.

[@louis-ericsimard7659]

@@vladimirseven777 This is not the case for all old 8 bit processors; for example the 6502 did not have 16 bit addressing. What you are referring to are extensions to 8 bit memory spaces using bank switching in order to save costs or implement features ahead of their time. That there are exceptions and additions to an evolving design does not make the explanation of the basic design faulty.

[@vladimirseven777]

@@louis-ericsimard7659 Not faulty, but very incomplete. Like modern AT-mega or Arduino are the same as old 8-bit processors. Bank switching in 16 bit processors was implemented to address memory above 65535 while pure 8-bit can address only 256 bytes.

[@vladimirseven777]

@@StavrosKor It depends from application. For example if used for temperature measurement or digital to analog conversion 8 bit data bus or data width used in CPU it limited to max 8 bit capacity - from 0 to 255 (256 states). 16 bit (65536) or 32 bit (somewhere 4 billion +) - you can use better precision, for example work with 0.001 of temperature. But right now 1C degrees (for example from 20 to 275C) or stepper motor drivers (max 256 microsteps) seems enough.

[@ald3nt3]

@@vladimirseven777 That isn't true. You can basicly calculate everything in an 8bit processor to the same precision a 32bit processor can by concernating the calculations using things like carry-flags. The only problem is, that it takes a lot more clock cycles for your calculation. Modern 32bit CPU, like stm32, also come with an FPU (floating point unit) which handles floating point operation in much less cycles that the standart ALU of the Arduinos ATMega2560. Problem of the stepper driving is that the Software on a 8bit processors in use aren't able to drive more that 10.000 steps/s due to lack of ressources with the workaround of sending multiple steps at once to reach up to 40.000steps/s. This method is called double and quadstepping which you can find in configuration.h in the marlin files and produces an absolute horrible sound, vibrations and possibly steplosses, as seen in the video. More than 40.000 isn't possible at all without disturbing the whole software loop comprising things like closed loop temperature regulation, watching for endstops being hit, safety loops (temperature runaway)etc. Having 80steps/mm for X/Y axis at 16µSteps limits your movement to 125mm/s (=10000/80). If you increase the steps per mm by increasing the µStep-Number to let's say 256µSteps like the TMC allows you to do, you would be limited to ~8mm/s.

[@justingort1]

I would love to see a comparison between a 8bit system with klipper and a RPI and a 32bit board. To see how the 8bit board compares when the calculations are done on the rpi. And as always a good and clear video. Keep it up

[@JohnOCFII]

Very nicely done, Michael! This level of tutorial, first generic, then specific to 3D printers is just what the community needed. The level of information is perfect.

[@KingKuni88]

This is why your channel is called "Teching Tech" I learned a lot. Thank you so much for this outstanding Content. Greets from Germany!

[@Electro_Spunk]

Just bought the same board for my Ender 3. Been putting off swapping it in, but there's no excuse now. Thanks for your hard work! Your channel is awesome.

[@dunkeroni]

4:50 if you already know what a bit is and want to skip to the part concerning 3D printers.

[@FragBenitez]

Thanks 👌

[@MrPancakes98]

Thanks man

[@danteelleon]

I'm commenting only for thank you for such a good job doing videos, not only this one but every other videos. Nice work! Really helpful for newbies like me. I appreciate it a lot.

[@dwaynehope1689]

I agree with Louis on this. you explained a very complex subject so easily and clearly.

[@DavidWTube]

This is the best description of how a microprocessor works I have ever seen!

[@WhereNerdyisCool]

Great topic and I really appreciate you guiding us into this new technology!

[@thedonahoes]

Your description of binary was amazing

[@terciofelipeoliveirafrance2228]

my friend you teach something i was not expecting, by the first time i really learn binare codification

[@richardboyce4921]

nicely explained, thank you. This would be the first video I have watched that clearly explains the differences, drawbacks and complications around 8 bit vs 32 bit boards. Love your work, keep them coming. cheers..

[@alexschubert]

great video you are truly a great teacher in every definition of the word. stay warm Alex

[@iandawkins2182]

Another awesome video, going online now to order my SK board so I am ready to follow you and upgrade my Ender 3.

[@estebanadra9781]

YEEEEEES ! I bought a SKR and i'm waiting to arrive! Your video is going to be super helpfull!

[@megaobi]

I love the way you explain things very clear, concise and easy to understand

[@maximilianlindner]

We need 3d printer boards with 7 nm ZEN2 architecture, 64 cores and 8 ghz!

[@mitchh6471]

Max Lindner what would be awesome but total over kill but take a 1st gen core i7 980-990 extreme and turn it into a 3d printer all in one board. , octo-print , arduino ide, a slice of your choice fusion 360 and or what ever else you can throw at it. Even a high end 1st gen xeon. X58 chip set board or what ever. For the lower cost but way to much process power lol man that would be sick. I wonder if it could be done. I assume so.

[@BillyBobJimPatton]

@@mitchh6471 I have seen a similar thing done before by a friend. Take a look at Klipper firmware. It's general idea is process the print via a PC and pipe it to the Arduino in the printer.

[@BillyBobJimPatton]

You can run Klipper on a RPI. Or a high-end multcore workstation if you have one spare lol.

[@maximilianlindner]

@@BillyBobJimPatton I actually do have a couple of pc's standing around and collecting dust. William, I think this is one of the few occasions, where a youtube comment has given me the momentum to do something great!

[@BillyBobJimPatton]

@@maximilianlindner happy to have bucked the trend and give a useful YT comment. I should screenshot it and frame it as proof that it can happen haha I'd be interested to hear how you get on with trying it.

[@Markfps]

Perfectly explained as usual! Very interesting and very handy to know the differences! Cheers!

[@Mr.Laidukas]

Very easy to follow explanation! Easy to understand, I gues could be used even in schools. Great!

[@potteryjoe]

Definitely helpful information for a lot of us! And now I know enough to know that I don't really need to know any more, for what I do. Thanks!

[@locke3817]

Ordered mine last week, looking forward to the upgrade comparaison

[@JohnDStrand]

As always your explanations are great and simple to understand.

[@RamLaska]

[Being pedantic for fun, not to be a pest] There are actually analog computers that aren’t base-2, but I don’t know if they’re still used anymore. In addition, many SSDs are actually base-4 or even base-8, meaning each memory cell stores two or three bits at a time. Explaining Computers has a very good video about this discussing the new Samsung QVO 3-bit SSDs. Love your work, keep it coming. 🙂 I know I’m commenting on an old video, it’s just how I roll. ;)

[@adilsongoliveira]

Perfect timing, I just bought one for my ender 3 :)

[@JoshMurrah]

I really enjoyed this video, I think it's a great tutorial on why we might need 8 bit versus 32 bit, and I was pleased to see you mention how stepper drivers with higher resolution can aggravate this need. I do have one criticism though, the H-bot style such as the Ender 5 is still a cartesian kinematic, the Y axis just moves the X gantry instead of the bed, and isn't harder to calculate. Spot on about the CoreXY and Delta style tho.

[@TeachingTech]

I don't own any h bot machines but I was under the impression two stepper inputs were needed for most movements. I may in fact be wrong, no problem admitting that.

[@JoshMurrah]

Teaching Tech hey so I think I am in the wrong - I just saw you seeming to refer to the Ender 5 as H bot which it is not. So all good! Good video thank you!

[@bill8478]

Another terrific video. You explain topics very well.

[@TheBillzilla]

Good timing, I bought the same board a couple of weeks ago and am just finishing installing it into my printer.

[@Side85Winder]

Your review of 8bit vs 32bit is nice. Thre are limitations of 8bit it has been known for a while. Expecially with matrix bed leveling and linear advance adding a lot of overhead into the movement. Most 8bit setups are running a RPI 3B+ with octoprint to make life easier transfering files wirelessly. If we use the RPI processing power for running Klipper so all data processing is made by the RPI we can print to a very high microstepping. The limitation is made by the transfer speed of the arduino USB. Its a little lower than the processing speed of your 32bit but a lot higher than what 8bit can handle.

[@TeachingTech]

I have two klipper videos coming up. Thanks for sharing.

[@Side85Winder]

@@TeachingTech from memory a 8bit system with 1/16 steppers (a4988) tops out around 160-180mm/s. With a ABL and linear advance its around 120mm/s which is still a lot higher than most users print at. Using klipper a arduino has 115200bps baud rate. Since we are only sending move data and sensor information we can use a ABL and LA and still print upwards of ~200mm/s.

[@RinksRides]

you sure did teach the hell outta that tech, cheers!

[@archieobrien1]

This has been explained so well, thank you.

[@jammi__]

You should do a test of showing print quality differences as well, especially when using some of the smoother drivers such as 2208

[@frogmandave1]

Great video. Definite thumbs up for this one!

[@PRO3DESIGN]

Very Good content! I really like your channel with this type of content rather than the printer review. Keep it up and I will give you a shout out in my next

[@blueskyresearch6701]

Those leftover 8 bit controllers also make really sweet general purpose Arduino compatible dev boards.

[@rajibsarkar01]

@Teaching Tech Actually 8/32 bit is not really the precision of the ALU but the width of address map. For a controller it is called x bit only because the address map is x bit width - more the 'x' means more memory it can address. Page 17 of the datasheet - datasheet.octopart.com/LPC1768FBD100,551-NXP-datasheet-8326490.pdf

[@MMuraseofSandvich]

3:02 Surprised no one's pointed this out. N digits of binary can represent up to 2^N values, and thus 8 bits can represent up to 256 values (0-255 unsigned). Early computers represented negative integers as described here, called signed magnitude representation-- one bit is reserved for positive/negative, and the rest is used for the number's value. However, modern computers represent negative integers differently, and 8 bits can represent 256 values (-128 to 127). This happened partly because of the cost of transistors in the early days of computing, and partly because it was kinda silly to have both a positive 0 and a negative 0. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signed_number_representations#Two's_complement Signed magnitude representation didn't catch on for integers, but it lives on in modern floating point (IEEE 754). Floating point does have a positive 0 and a negative 0, and they're used in cases where, say, a mathematical function has a discontinuity at 0. 1 divided by x, for example-- approaching zero from the positive side of the X axis, it shoots up to positive infinity, whereas approaching it from the other side, it falls off to negative infinity.

[@79DJB]

Morio, I got to 3:15 and went nope, 2s compliment. I'm an embedded designer.... Apart from that, great explanation

[@avejst]

Nice intro Looking forward to part 2 Thanks for sharing :-)

[@HaikIHeaD]

Perfect !!! Just what i was waiting, how to install the SKR.

[@lumkichi1341]

Good overview of "bits". Just minor corrections: 8 bit signed has a range of -128 to +127 (not the -127 to +127 as in the video). Also, the 32 bit unsigned has a range of 4.29 billion values or a signed range of -2147483648 to + 2147483647. it may seem funny that there are more "negative" numbers than "positive". In the case of -128 to +127, this comes out to 128 negative values PLUS the value 0 PLUS 127 positive values (128 + 1 + 127 = 256 possible values an eight-bit number can represent).

[@kevfquinn]

My favourite analogy is to say that going from 8-bit/16MHz to 32-bit/72MHz is like going from one milk-float at 15mph on a country lane, to four minivans at 70mph on a four-lane-wide highway. The bigtreetech SKR-mini-E3 looks interesting btw - $30 drop-in replacement for Ender-3/5, using a 72MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processor and soldered-on TMC2209 drivers - a real winner, I think.

[@belkocik]

Nice video! I'm waiting for skr mini e3 in ender 3 tutorial :)

[@YogeshPatel9]

Hopefully you can mention the TMC2209's that are coming embedded on some ender 3 direct replacements. Not even sure if it's fully supported but it's the cheapest/easiest way to push into 32bit boards with the ender series

[@Roadkillz3666]

Wow thanks for the review of my System Architecture class...

[@cesarv6843]

Thank you for sharing you’re knowledge

[@AdnanASyukri]

Thank you for the clear explanation!

[@davidlockwood4545]

Wow! I just posted a request for this on Michael's Patreon Page. Now that is responsive!

[@Mephiston]

He was probably already working on it.

[@f.m.thornal7872]

@ 3:18 you reference the max decimal value that can be represented in a 32 bit binary number as 2,147,483,648. That is for a signed number or two's complement. That effectively makes it a 31 bit number. A 32 bit binary number is 4,294,967,295 in decimal format.

[@NuarStanger]

Thank you for this video, I literally just asked a question about the difference between the boards and whether they are necessary on the facebook ender 3 groups.

[@marklandsaat3696]

This is a great explanation 👍

[@10bz6d6]

Thank you for the informative video.

[@adamf663]

My primary reason for a motherboard upgrade is for quiet operation and having 5 servo outputs for a future dual z-axis upgrade with auto leveling.

[@theKashConnoisseur]

Between setting up the software to use Marlin 2.0, configuring the FW for the board and the printer, setting up various drivers (especially TMC drivers with SPI/UART), and setting up various sensors, you could have an entire SKR series lol.

[@theKashConnoisseur]

@@cobeer1768 no I don't lol. That would be a great thing.

[@TeachingTech]

Hoping to cover as much as possible in a concise way.

[@billsolomon1]

Wow, you are smart about this stuff! Thank you!

[@sandwichsilverflavour5658]

5:33 Ok so 32bits is a must if the drivers have high resolution microstepping, nice. A must have for the TMC drivers basically.

[@myNICKnameISgelo]

omg, Alex kid! You gave me a nostalgic heartache😢

[@stevesloan6775]

Great descriptive upload. Condensed too a T.

[@rafalrackmann2884]

Just small notice. Download speed is measured at Bits/s not bytes/s (B - bits, b - bytes)

[@Cfontes82]

Your channel is great, thanks for the content. You are one of the only ones reviewing the A10M on KZbin that I trust, because of that I have a couple questions. What are your thoughts on the Geeetech A10M after a couple months with it? Is it useful for single filament use too ? How is the maintenance ? Would you still recommend it?

[@davey3765]

Most of those 32 & 64 bit game consoles were actually just 16bit as far as the actual instruction set they could register. The manufacturers used the size of the memory bus to the RAM to justify the higher 'bit' since thats all the public knew as a number being 'better'. But I get your point.

[@TheShoted]

What about an accurate pinout for this board? Please include some info on that in the next video. The information for this board is so hard to find! Thanks for the great content as always!

[@wrxsubaru02]

Can you get 2 identical printers but upgrade one with the 32bit board and one on 8bit then print something high speed? I would like to see the results at the end.

[@originaltrilogy1]

I'm going to try this on my CR10 S5, so will do the experiment. Any suggestions as to which model to use for the experiment?

[@wrxsubaru02]

​@@originaltrilogy1 You asking me or did you mean to ask Teaching Tech? I am not sure what model would be good to print but would would guess anything with lots of angles, corners and dimensions within very short distance from each other... something where it has to process many movements on all axis very quickly. Maybe some kind of chain style objects or something with lots of circles and other shapes? im thinking something like this at high speed but i could be wrong. www.thingiverse.com/thing:1363023

[@bermchasin]

@@originaltrilogy1 hmmm perhaps a little boat?

[@cpt_Ruckus]

Quality content.. well done.

[@thermalreboot]

Jump to 4:30 if you already know the difference between 8 bit and 32 bit.

[@Midwesternreedneck]

Don't forget one of the largest benefits of 32bit in processing is larger memory addressing. This means more ram accessible by the CPU.

[@TeachingTech]

Agreed I though about including flash space and ram. I probably should have.

[@rudolphriedel541]

@@TeachingTech Except that it has nothing to do with the 8bit or 32bit designation.

[@dmail00]

@@TeachingTech Personally I think you had the right amount of details without losing people. For example you could have spoken about 2's complement but it would not really add anything but confusion. From my experience of teaching computer science at secondary level, address space is not a first lesson topic :)

[@Nath8737]

No this the correct answer. The ability to address up to 4 gigs of memory is the advantage of 32-bit. That limitation is also why everything eventually moved to 64-bit in the computing world. There are actually still 32-bit types available in 8-bit microcontrollers. See Long, Double, etc in Arduino. That maybe confusing for some people though. Enjoy the channel keep up the good content.

[@rudolphriedel541]

@@Nath8737 No, the designation if an architecture is 8/16/32/64 bits depends on the width of the working registers, the width of the address bus has nothing to do with it. Remember the C64? Its 6510 CPU is an 8-bit design with a 16-bit address bus. The 8-bit AVR that is used on many printer boards uses separate busses for programm and data and while the data-bus is 16-bit wide, the program-bus is even wider making devices with more than 64k of FLASH possible. Putting memory into chips however is expensive and epxanding the busses with additional bits also is. We see more memory in 32-bit mikrocontrollers for two reasons, first of with everything using 32 bits it just does not cost extra anymore to use a 32 bit address bus. Secondly the price per bit SRAM dropped significantly in the last 15 years, mostly due to smaller structures but also due to better mass production. AVR was 140nm if I recall it correcly, more recent controllers are manufactured in 22nm. Atmel could have easily released an AVR with 64k SRAM and 256k+ FLASH but they were driven by demand from industrial customers - and obviously there was no demand for such a controller.

[@zeendaniels5809]

Would be very interesting to see a full comparison on a Tarantula Pro or an Ender 3... Stock vs 32bits vs Klipper

[@redbad]

Nice video as usual. When can we expect the video on the SKR 1.3? Thanks!

[@TeachingTech]

Monday morning Aus time.

[@rapalma38]

Muchas gracias por compartir tu conocimiento!

[@spikekent]

Great explanation Micheal, Can't wait for the next video, it's the board that I plan to put in the Borg. Do you plan to cover using the E1 for the second Z motor? I haven't even touched Marlin 2.0 yet, but will be having a practice soon ... after your video

[@mf7338]

I would love if you would do a comparison on the popular coreXY printers. Voron, D-bot, Hypercube, HEVO, V-king, etc. no one really has a complete comparison that I could find.

[@TeachingTech]

Possibly because no one owns all of them :)

[@cache4pat]

Awesome & timely video Michael. I am considering using Marlin 2.0 to help implement BLTouch. But I am afraid the ENDER-5's Sanguino board might be incapable of supporting Marlin 2.0. Is the MKS Gen L board a better choice; or something else. Maybe I should stick with Marlin 1.1.9 on my Ender-5; and look at Marlin 2.0 for my next printer, down the road ..... I look forward to your advise.

[@TeachingTech]

I haven't tested marlin 2.0 on an Ender board but on paper it should be fine. The Gen L is superior in every way to the Melzi, but there isn't any need to upgrade unless you want to use more IO pins or change stepper drivers.

[@SidneyCritic]

My car's EFI is controlled by a 8bit MEGA2560 Arduino, so it's a bit surprising you would need anything approaching 32bit for something as simple as a 3D printer. Like doesn't the micro just tell the stepper controller which way to go and how far, and then the stepper controller decides the number of steps based on it's jumper settings. I can see going to 32bit because it's nearly the same price, but maybe it's more to do with memory size than needed processing power.

[@TeachingTech]

The mc still has to send a signal for each micro step to the driver. That's why your steps per mm are increased in the firmware when you go up from 1/16.

[@SteinerSE]

Have you made any video about microstepping and what you can gain/cons?. Now with access to Skr 1.3 32bit and 2209's maybe that's a path to take? What would going all 1/32 stepping do for example?

[@jrherita]

Excellent video! Subbed!

[@IraQNid]

64-bit or 128-bit boards for advanced 3D printers that can move the print head(s) on a robotic arm with all the nuances of a human artist. Use resin pens with UV light to cure each color on the fly in real time. Have a multi-head rotational mount so that each head handles one or more different colors or types of materials or a mixture. So an Octopus style robotic 3D printer will of course need more processing power to perform marvelous feats of automated artistry.

[@karunkalia1850]

This video is great with lots of information. Would you know which bit control board will work for mixing extrusion commands (concurrent feeding of 2 filaments in 1 hot end)? I am using Creality CR-X Pro printer with Marlin 2.0 version firmware. Printer has Creality V2.2 ATmega2560 processor control board. I assume it is a 8 bit board, would it require 32 bit board to execute mixing commands?

[@williamfosterXD]

other option is flash klipper onto the 8 bit board and offload all the maths onto the pi wich then just sends step pulse timing/dir to the controller

[@PaulLemars01]

So is the controller in my Anycubic Linear Kossel 32 bit? I loaded Marlin 1.1.8 onto it about 8 months ago and now it's dialed in its completely dependable and delivers high quality prints. Same with my Ender 3. I know it's got a cheap-ass 8 bit board but it works well. And there is the issue. My interest is not in building the best printer but in having reliable printers to output my projects. They are both dialed in such that I rarely have to level them and I'm not sure screwing around with the controller will give me additional value. Maybe I need to build a delta from scratch.

[@TeachingTech]

If it's reliable and printing to your satisfaction I would leave it.

[@68HC060]

As written above, I think the rule "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies in your case. -You're already satisfied with the prints, which means it might not be worth all the trouble and frustrations upgrading. But at a later point, when you think your Kossel is no longer an interesting piece of technology, you could upgrade it to a 32-bit board, which should then give it 'new life'.

[@mhe0815]

It is pretty simple, the Duet can't be beat in price/performance right now. It has the best stepper drivers available, everything config is GCode, it has a pretty damn fast CPU, built-in webinterface. It not even more expensive than an arduino with a motor shield plus good stepsticks and a raspberry plus sdcard for the webinterface. There is simply no excuse not to have a Duet if you want a webinterface (which is something you never want to be without once you've been spoiled by it).

[@b5a5m5]

Just chiming in to say Max value of an unsigned 32 bit integer is in the 4 billions, for a signed 32 bit int you are correct though, but with the stipulation that the lowest number is negative 2 billion something instead of 0. Which means you can still jam roughly 4 billions different values into 32 bits, whether signed or unsigned.

[@danielfilipemo]

Hi @Teaching Tech, did you heard about klipper? Great way to re-purpose 8-bit hardware as kinematics are run in another device like a raspberry pi.

[@MYtimeNspace]

Thanks for the video, great job! could you do a video of marlin setup for Delta style printer such as Monoprice mini delta. My MPMD controller died lost the hot end temperature control. and the controller board is currently out of stock. I know these videos are a lot of work but they are of great worth for those of us who don't have the expertise with firmware builds. There are a lot of problems & fixes that this would help solve on the MPMD as well! thanks in advance!!!!

[@roxandtol]

I was thinking a long time to upgrade to the MKS gen L but up until recently i wont. i will use the SKR 1.3 because 2 killer features: SD card and 32 Bit proccesor

[@KamilxxG]

MKS Gen L can have sd card. It requires to buy SPI card reader for $0.5, connecting it to AUX3 and some small change in marlin.

[@rudolphriedel541]

I am waiting for a board featuring an ATSAMD51, preferably done as drop-in replacement for the Ender-3.

[@Mobile_Dom]

on AliExpres their is £2 difference between the MKS gen L and the MKS SGen L (the 32bit replacement, same size) i'd love to know why anyone would pick the 8 bit for £2 difference.

[@tinplategeek1058]

You're right, at the current market prices there is no real issue with even budget 3D printers being supplied with the a 32bit board. For the likes of Creality, the price in bulk would be even less than £2 a board different. The manufacturers just need to get on with it.

[@m0gga]

Great video, very informative, thanks for sharing. Can you please tell me if it would be possible/easy to fit a 32 bit board in say an Anycubic i3 Mega S which incidentally is a very recent purchase of mine. My main concern is departing from the manufacturers stock firmware, driving the touch screen LCD and the GUI, menus etc.. Thank you.

[@68HC060]

Technically it's possible, but it might take some messing around with adjusting the firmware. This requires some 'nerd skills'; it's a good idea practising a little first (eg. programming a stand-alone microcontroller to flash a LED). Note: If things go bonkers and it "just won't work", you can still just swap back to the old board. In reality, it might not be worth switching your Anycubic i3 Mega S to 32-bit just yet; I'd recommend waiting until someone releases firmware specific to the Mega S; this way you'll know that it'll communicate correctly with the display. Mega S is not a bad choice, BTW; it's well crafted, many things are done correctly, where on the majority of other 3D printers, they're not.

[@m0gga]

@@68HC060 Thanks for the reply. Nerd skills I have plenty, I am more into designing and manufacturing my own circuit boards, moved on from flashing LED's long ago, electronics is my other passion along with my own built aluminium CNC machine. I have just ordered an SKR 1.4 Turbo MB and TFT 35 display, which will arrive tomorrow. Have done quite a bit of research since posting my question and I am looking forward to diving in. Thinking of renaming it since all that will be left is the hardware which as you say is well crafted and the reason for my choice of first 3D printer.

[@68HC060]

You're welcome. I think your printer is in very good hands; I'd say go for it. ;) I'm also doing PCB-designs, software and firmware (I can feel my brain is getting old, though). [You just have a new subscriber] - If you succeed, it'd be awesome to see a short video of your result.

[@m0gga]

@@68HC060 Happy to oblige, I think that I still have an active (sort of) channel.

[@m0gga]

@@68HC060 What a dumbo I am, you found my channel, DOH! It has been sorely neglected.

[@AstralJaeger]

s from a teaching standpoint this video is spot on, I am a CS student and pretty much know what all the stuff is and honestly think we should move all 3d printers to 32bit just because we can. Why didn't we already? Because the manufacturers can get away with cheaper microcontrollers, the ARM chips are around 2x what the AVR chips cost.

[@jothain]

No. There really hasn't been need for 32bit boards, unless using Delta style printers or something similar which needs calculations to reach specific points. Basic ie. Prusa style printers are very hard to even reach the limit of needing that fast calculations. Let's be real and remember that very heavy duty machines in industry have been going with 8bits very far and applications shit tons drastic than some plastic squirting thing that would demolish itself in speeds used in industry machines. So all in all 32bit "need" is in many applications something that simply sounds cool. Also this videos analogy of game consoles is hilarious. Atari Jaguar with its "do the math" in bit wars was a kill of the bit wars😁

[@oleurgast730]

You forgot one big advantage of 32 bit: It is much cheaper. 8 bit processors are produced in smaller amounds and there are some more expansive licences involved. Due to 5V they use older production technics and less density on the silicium waver. Due to some months ago only reason for 8-bit being cheaper was the larger amounts 3d-printer boards in 8-bit where produced. That changed. More and more 32 bit boards came on the market and the price already dropped to the price of 8-bit boards, if you look on the board only (without drivers). An SKR 1.3 costs $19, the same as an MKS Gen L on AliExpress (and even less on "sales"). So there is no reason at all - exept avoiding learning new things if you use Arduino IDE at the moment - to use 8-bit on a new printer. But upgrading Ender 3 to an SKR 1.3 seems not a good idea at the moment. Bigtreetech just published its new SKR mini e3, a 32-bit board with form-factor and connections being the same as the creality board. A drop-in replacement - for less than 30$ including the TMC2209 stepper drivers (soldered). Delivered with Marlin 2.0 already configured for the Ender3. Aditional conectors for filament runout detection and ABL (BL-Touch and other solutions), aditional serial port for touch screens (or adding OctoPi) and RGB lights (of course to use this you might compile the firmware yourself or wait until someone put a firmware.bin online). Less than 30€ with more functions for the 32-bit board with TMC2209 compared to tthe Creality "silent" board for nearly 50$ with 8-bit (crippled with low memory) and TMC2208. Also this board should work on all Ender3 "clones" (like the U30), mostly even without compilling new firmware. As most touchscreens are using serial comunication by gcodes, it would be interestingly if the U30-touchscreen works with this board... One advantage of 32-bit you did not mention: even with same stepper drivers and microstepping the higher processing power leads to more precision in timing of step pulses and a less noisy movement. You can hear it at the alfawise u30, using same mechanic and drivers as the ender 3 but beeing less noisy (of course due to the other design failiures it even less noisy as you would leave it turned off at all ;-) ) So I think you are wrong if you prognose entry-level printers will stay some time to 8bit. With the U30 it is shown entry-level printers already go 32bit (even if that printer has other faults). Marlin 2.0 - while still being beta - is stable for the functions needed for simple entry level printers. With 32bit-processing make even a cheap A4988 less noisy, it allows manufactures better test results while reducing production costs. So maybe there will be some new entry-level printers with 8-bit in the next 3 months but in 6 months no company will sucessfuly release a 8 bit-printer anymore.

[@TeachingTech]

Great post, thanks for taking the time to share.

[@oleurgast730]

@@TeachingTech I have to say thank you for all your great videos. You are definitly one of my most favorite youtubers (and I wait for the next video with as much anticipation as I wait on the next episode of startrek discovery...). I just started 15 months ago with 3d printing - and its amazing how much can be learned by the videos you (and Angus, Tom etc.) make. I made my first video myself (about connecting an external stepper driver to a Creality board to use TMC drivers without changing board - sorry, german only). Even that quick and dirty video was not easy to make - so I very much apprectiate the expenditure you do with your videos.

[@fightthefuture]

@@oleurgast730 Thank you. I may go this way on the mini.

[@8bitInfidel]

Would your next video for the ender 3 also work for the ender 5? Great work btw, newly subbed, and new to 3D printing, you've help enormously

[@BlueMacGyver]

Wow, I think you covered it all, every painful detail.

[@69Janisse]

Hi Micheal. Thank for all the great videos. Lately I came across this board on AliExpress: BIQU BIGTREETECH SKR MINi E3 32 Bit Control Board Integrated TMC2209 UART RGB Controller Marlin For Ender 3 /5 3D Printer Since it is designed for the ender 3 and 5 it would nice to see a review on this board

[@DennisFisherUK]

I have ordered one so it would be interesting if you got one before me. They have also released the tft24 display for it. Its a lot cheaper than the skr when you have to buy the stepper drives like the TMC2130. The TMC2209 can do sensor less homing and has stall guard too. The mini E3 has connectors for a BLtouch.

[@69Janisse]

I am actually wondering if it has the same form factor as the original Ender 3 board

[@Naude716]

Awesome video. Would you recommend a 32-bit board, such as the SKR 1.3 as an upgrade for an Ender 3 (Pro) ? Purely looking at it from a perspective with whether it will improve print quality or not?

[@MrShadowchsr2]

I have a monoprice maker select plus, basically a wanhao duplicator I3, and was wonder if this board would be possible to retro fit into my printer, I'm not happy with it and doing research on turning it I to what it should be

[@TeachingTech]

I have the Cocoon clone of that printer. The sticking point will be the ribbon cable attachment which is different to other prints. You would need to cut and terminate the wires with jst connectors or make a break out board.

[@MrShadowchsr2]

@@TeachingTech I have seen your video with the Cocoon, tinkering to make it work would not be a problem, curious if it was possible to make it work. I basically am unhappy with my printer and I want to work with it and turn it into something better cause that's just me, tinker with something till I either break it or enhance it ha ha.

[@rafiklam6836]

good job man

[@ALegitimateYoutuber]

question any advice on how to reduce that vertical line that shows up on prints. because when printing circles it's a noticeable factor that effects tolerances just enough to not get smooth fits. I think it's from extrustion where the printer stops and starts. Also i use cura, because ya.

[@tiaancordier3798]

Change Z Seam in cura to random to get rid of that line

[@fabiogarcia1431]

@@tiaancordier3798 This does not solve the problem, just mask it, because the stopping point of each layer will be distributed randomly, leaving small dots all over the print surface. I think the better way is to sand that vertical line to get rid of it.

[@JohnSmith-mk8hz]

Great video. I'm wondering which drivers, TMC2209 or TMC2208?

[@shadow7037932]

Not a ton of differences between the two as far as usability goes for 99% of the people/setups. Get whichever one is cheaper.

[@billysbikes8671]

when using octoprint does the processing still happen on the mainboard or the pi? if its all done on the pi would 32bit vs 8bit mainboard be irrelevant? you make awesome vids that help a lot.. thank you..

[@MrNlce30]

Is there no 16 bit board? A sort of middle ground between the two. To use the Video game reference a Mega Drive (Genesis). Still better than the Master System but nowhere near good enough for 3D graphics. Just seems that someone is missing a trick there. Great video. Keep up the good work.

[@TeachingTech]

Not that I know of.

[@orbitalair2103]

Doubtful, since everything in 3d hobby has been chosen based on 1)availability and 2)price. The arduino was available, cheap and used a free toolchain (free compiler). Most 16bit(24bit) micros were PICS, with no free compilers this ruled out pics in the 3d space. Atmel had cheap 8bits and free compilers(and tons of libraries for hardware) so that was natural extension. The compiler issue is what is really holding the 32bit boards back, arms, stms, nxps, etc all have specialized compilers (and libraries to use the hardware) that are generally not free, or are very painful to use. Even for this board WHY Marlin uses some bunch of offbeat complicated editor tools and stuff is beyond me, probably because most kids have no idea how to edit text and use a Makefile.

[@tech34756]

I wonder if eventually we’ll see ‘dumb’ boards which are slaves to something like the RPi? On the one hand it would make upgrades easier, cheaper and potentially provide advantages such as integrated wifi. On the other hand it could cause issues such as if the Pi freezes/crashes.

[@HughCampbell]

Like, say, this? github.com/KevinOConnor/klipper Would love to see a comparison of this vs a new controller board.

[@TheRealMichaelAndretti]

@@HughCampbell Interesting! Thanks!

[@TeachingTech]

Got klipper plus a dedicated klipper board coming up.

[@nrdesign1991]

Well, time for an upgrade from the Mega+RAMPS to an SKR for my 6 year old Delta :)