Quote Originally Posted by soofle616 View Post
So is it your intention then to run your 3d printer like a paper printer in the sense that you hit "print", the file is transferred to the printer's internal memory before it starts to print, and you can then close your printer software and/or shut down your computer? If so, then i think that's a decent reason to push forward on this (though "because I can" is also reason enough for me). In terms of simplifying the electronics and firmware in the printer i can definitely see the benefit to your idea.
Well thank you.

Yes it would be nice to be able to send an entire model to be printed to the printer, disconnect from the host system, and have the print finish up with out any reliance on the host system. And that is part of the goal. Doing so with only the RAM in the MCU in 99% of cases.

Then keeping the HW simple as possible reduces the build cost (and part of my goal is to make something that is affordable [less than $150] to copy).

Simplifying software, should be a goal of all programmers. For every 100 lines of code there is on average 6 bugs (in any project now days), so reducing code size reduces the number of likely bugs, and improves the ability to debug. I have been careful about coding to avoid bugs at all cost for a long time, and they still sneak up on me often.

I believe strongly in KISS when it comes to both HW design and programming. If you can do the exact same thing in half the code with the same user experience, do it. I know this is the opposite of modern programmers, who tend to do things in ten times more code with no added function or user experience.

And above all:
I like the challenge of doing something just a little better than standard. If I can shave one wasted clock cycle, I will, if I can shave one byte with out loosing anything I will, if I can save a few lines of code to do the same thing I will. I enjoy programming (not code banging like a lot of modern "Programers" do).