Orbion - The OpenSource 3D Space Mouse

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adrianinsaval
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Re: Orbion - The OpenSource 3D Space Mouse

Post by adrianinsaval »

grd wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 12:33 pm Now that we are talking about hardware, why isn't there a list of preferred hardware? Something like professional hardware from Lenovo, Dell or HP?
why would there be? freecad isn't some company making deals with manufacturers to promote their stuff and we definitively don't have enough resources to be making the kind of testing necessary to provide valid recommendations.
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kwahoo
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Re: Orbion - The OpenSource 3D Space Mouse

Post by kwahoo »

While this is an interesting project, I see some minor issues:

1. "CAD files" are done in Fusion 360, so not very open IMHO. Such small project could be easily done with FreeCAD.

2. They use Arduino Micro Pro, a board based on AVR8 microcontroller. This is quite limiting, ATMEGA32U4 have just 32 kB FLASH, 2.5 kB RAM. Why not use something much modern? Also the code is very uC specific, not great for porting in different board in future.

This is a demo, I made in 5 minutes (borrowing some code from my other project) showing encoder input in FreeCAD:
phpBB [video]


It is running wireless, using Bluetooth LE. The uC is NRF52840 (which is actually similar price to ATMEGA32U4), with 1 MB flash, 512 kB RAM. Firmware uses Zephyr OS, and FreeCAD side Python module called bleak. Zephyr makes code uC-agnostic, so using different boards is much easier.
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Re: Orbion - The OpenSource 3D Space Mouse

Post by grd »

adrianinsaval wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 2:53 pm
grd wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 12:33 pm Now that we are talking about hardware, why isn't there a list of preferred hardware? Something like professional hardware from Lenovo, Dell or HP?
why would there be? freecad isn't some company making deals with manufacturers to promote their stuff and we definitively don't have enough resources to be making the kind of testing necessary to provide valid recommendations.
I mean for selecting which hardware one can buy. I don't think that FC runs well on an average laptop. For that you need something more.
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adrianinsaval
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Re: Orbion - The OpenSource 3D Space Mouse

Post by adrianinsaval »

grd wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 3:30 pm I mean for selecting which hardware one can buy. I don't think that FC runs well on an average laptop. For that you need something more.
see
adrianinsaval wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 2:53 pm why would there be? freecad isn't some company making deals with manufacturers to promote their stuff and we definitively don't have enough resources to be making the kind of testing necessary to provide valid recommendations.
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Re: Orbion - The OpenSource 3D Space Mouse

Post by M4x »

Maybe we should get back to discussing this project :)

@kwahoo justfied objection! I guess the author has some experience with that processor / environment.
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