My vote for onboard drivers...
I think having on-board drivers (or an option for on-board drivers) is a great idea for "the masses". There will always be certain edge cases (as identified above) where the onboard drivers will not work.
I think the Smoothie board handles this well: there are onboard drivers but before the driver there is a breakout for step/direction/enable if you want to use an external driver (or if you blow the onboard driver). This way you can have a mass produced board with the edge cases being covered with plugs (only disadvantage is you need to pay for something you're not using)
I have a smoothie board in the mail to try out. The biggest disadvantage (IMO) is the 4 axis limit of onboard controllers.
Also, im not an expert, but what is the difference between SAM3X8E (Arduino) and LPC1769 (Smoothie)? I see both are cortex-m3 and I undertand that smoothie firmware was not a port, but a scratch-write.
I think having on-board drivers (or an option for on-board drivers) is a great idea for "the masses". There will always be certain edge cases (as identified above) where the onboard drivers will not work.
I think the Smoothie board handles this well: there are onboard drivers but before the driver there is a breakout for step/direction/enable if you want to use an external driver (or if you blow the onboard driver). This way you can have a mass produced board with the edge cases being covered with plugs (only disadvantage is you need to pay for something you're not using)
I have a smoothie board in the mail to try out. The biggest disadvantage (IMO) is the 4 axis limit of onboard controllers.
Also, im not an expert, but what is the difference between SAM3X8E (Arduino) and LPC1769 (Smoothie)? I see both are cortex-m3 and I undertand that smoothie firmware was not a port, but a scratch-write.