On of the main reasons I started the Power ARM printer project was to replace my aging printers. I started with an Anet A8 which I modded and repaired so many times barely anything of the original printer is left. I then started the original Power ARM project with a SCARA or robot arm like 3D printer, back then I thought the 32-bit pun was cute for a low cost maker arm clone but then I ran into a kinematic programming wall. You see, I am more of a mechanical engineer enthusiast so I love structural and physical design and taught myself just enough electrical and computer science to get myself by. So I still keep an old Power ARM original but I have scrapped the others of its batch. My next printer was a Frankendavinci, a gift from a friend after the proprietary electronics bricked themselves. I gutted the electronics and replaced the X-carriage to use RAMPS and E3D hardware. I only recently this season got it somewhat working and the whole process of keeping it running can be exhausting. My latest printers have been three Cetus MkII's that in their electronics had about completely failed. Because the mainboards and hardware replacements would cost the same as an upgrade, I gave them a dose of RAMPS electronics and a new E3D hotend with a dedicated blower fan so future maintenance would be cheaper. Fantastic stuff I thought until it turned out the motors had been gimped by tier time and given obnoxiously high inductance forcing the machine to always function at 200 steps instead of 3200 steps. This resulted in atrocious surface artifacting so I am in the process of going from 12V to 24V, TMC2130, and some rigidity improvements. It's all just another project to be juggling.
Hopefully when the fall semester starts I will be bringing 8 printers to my school lab: 3 Cetus MkIV's and 5 Power ARM 3D printers. I should be on track to having 1 or 2 Power ARMs ready for sale by or before Sept 22 and I will be working on subsequent assembly manuals and supporting documents for the rest of the year.
Cheers!