One issue jumps to mind that is different. The tiny shop I have doesn't have room for a Keyboard, Mouse and Display by the lathe. I currently have a nice work triangle set up for the lathe toolbench and tool cabinet. It would require a lot of work to change that at a cost of space lost somewhere else.
Monitor on the wall behind the lathe? Support arm bolted to the wall for the keyboard? If you wanted these things you'd make room. As you don't want them you won't make the room. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. We just have different requirements.
And that's really, from my perspective all I am talking about. If have to add an external intelligence of some sort to do faster stepping or PWM then the sky's the limit on what is added because that 3GHz 1GB PC isn't fast enough to do what can be done with a small 32 bit ARM if the dedicated $250 CNC boxes from China are to be believed.
Go for it. If you design the board the LinuxCNC developers would be very willing to help you integrate it with LinuxCNC. Of course you'll have to be able to produce it at a price that makes it attractive to buyers.
If you can do it for the right price and if it has the I/O capability I need I'll buy one for my next machine. The display stuff is of no interest to me but keypads are always handy. I use modbus for my keypads at the moment.
I guess what I am suggesting is that it's time for LinuxCNC to be broken apart and a standardized interface for Ethernet control be developed. Once that could talk to dumb FPGA devices like the 7i92H or to full blown standalone CNC controllers that can act as simple DRO/Power Feed or even simple G-Code like the 3D printers. Or be connected to the much more powerful LinuxCNC to add, in addition to G-Code the fancy tool changing apparatus along with robotic cells that load and unload the parts.
You are completely missing the point. You don't need to 'break apart' LinuxCNC. It is designed from the ground up to be modular. The trajectory planner is just another module. Want to run an external box with it's own TP and I/O? No problem. Write a module to replace it that talks to your TP and you're off to the races. If you have the knowledge to write your own 6 axis TP on an external board, writing the HAL module to talk to it will be a piece of cake.
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