# Specific 3D Printers, Scanners, & Hardware > RepRap Format Printer Forum > MakerFarm Forum >  Anyone backing BBP contoler board?

## SgtToe

I'm still a novice and wondered if any of you had looked at the BBP, backed it or have any thoughts about it?

http://www.3ders.org//articles/20150...ler-board.html

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## kd7eir

I'm not. One stepper driver goes bad and you're buying an entirely new board instead of a $5-$10 stepper driver. Also, no mention if the firmware will be open source, so you may be stuck with whatever someone else decided that you can do with your printer. Further, just because you CAN send a faster signal to the stepper does not mean that your printer can reliably print at that speed. Generally quality is directly related to speed, so the ability to "print at least 4 times faster than before" is meaningless to me. Their "wireless" control is simply them installing OctoPrint on the board - not even their own technology.

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## jimc

the firmware is a ported version of marlin so really no improvement over anything current. the board can process faster but its still running antiquated firmware. i am less concerned about stepper drivers. i have never had a separate stepper driver on any of my boards and i have never had one fail and i have never known anyone to have one fail either. i would find this board good and back it if it were a real improvement and had a great and up to date firmware. unfortunately it doesnt and alot of the kickstarter seems to be loaded with bs and misleading statements

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## sniffle

So, Marlin is getting a face lift... 

There is a new maintainer, with actual collaborators, and they have been pushing bugfixes like crazy the last month or so.  It's coming along pretty well, they are actualy going through it and refactoring large files like pins.h and even marlin_main.cpp  into individual pins by board, and setting up the gcodes as actual methods instead of one long code block so that it's actually maintainable.  really impressive the work they have done...

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## printbus

This uses a port of Marlin? Seriously? OMG.

EDIT: Interpret the OMG as you feel fit.  Laughing here.

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## sniffle

marlin is great for arduino, but... that's like putting a special needs kid behind the wheel of a jet car... they should make there own firmware to runt hat optimized specifically for that device...

that just seems too scammy or half baked smoothieboard chinese knockoff...

we betah theh smootiebowd seee fasta chips

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## SgtToe

I don't have a printer and am still learning, so I wanted to see what others thought, thanks

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## printbus

The comments on both the link SgtToe provided and on kickstarter raise a number of valid questions/issues regarding the info they've posted so far.  I got a kick out of seeing their table showing RAMPS has no processor. Duh.  Screams sucker bait... It is entertaining to follow the comments from Arthur Wolf - isn't he the Smoothieboard guy?

Many of the usual red flags are out. Without even reading all the details - Low project threshold ensures they'll get funding.  Unrealistic hardware production schedule - seems like projects take months to get contract manufacturing lined up.  Option for too many backers - do they really think they can deliver 3000 boards encompassing (at least) two board revs by the end of August?

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## printbus

Just a classic example of what can happen with crowdfunded campaigns...

https://www.phoenix3dprinter.com/   (don't know what's up with the certificate error)

I was very close to backing the kickstarter campaign for the phoenix3d printer, but opted for an i3v instead.  Whew.

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## TopJimmyCooks

My Brother's friend funded Phoenix but I think he got his money back before delivery.  Last summer we were confused and incorrectly thought that Ez3d was the same as E3D and that therefore they had other hotend sales success to fall back on.  Sounds like they had no idea what they were doing.  

fortunately not all kickstarter printers are like that.  I'm particularly impressed with these guys.  a few struggles but they knew when to get help outside their own area of expertise:  http://www.openbeamusa.com/

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## SgtToe

I think I'm just going to go with rumba board, now that someone on the forms has worked through ABL I know I can get help with that, lol

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## printbus

> fortunately not all kickstarter printers are like that.  I'm particularly impressed with these guys.  a few struggles but they knew when to get help outside their own area of expertise:  http://www.openbeamusa.com/


Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that there's no such thing as a good crowdfunded effort.  I haven't backed any directly, but I've definitely reaped the benefit of purchasing a stable product upon completion of a campaign.  But with Ez3D, come on. The "we're insolvent" letter said all they wanted to do was build 50 printers.  Then why did the campaign offer 635 printers to backers?  And they seriously were caught by surprise at the funding cut taken by Kickstarter and the credit card companies?  Then when they knew they couldn't build the printers for what they had sold them for, what did they do? Started bringing in Ponzi-like funding by selling them to new customers and setting up a parallel Indiegogo campaign.  Yikes.

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## TopJimmyCooks

I've definitely benefited from croudfunding as well, without actually backing anything.   

I think as part of kickstarter's 5% take they should call their projects with goals over say $10k, and ask a few questions.  You know, how many walkers have you killed, how many people have you killed, and have you any idea what's involved in shipping X units of items with Y hundred parts imported from Z countries?  

Fortunately people are wary and attention gets drawn to examples of idiocy before it gets as far as EZ 3d these days.

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