BeagleBone Hardware Capes

An unofficial list of various 3D Printer, CNC, and motion control related capes I am aware of, along with their status.  If you know of any I missed, or notice something wrong, please leave a note in the comments.

Turnkey Systems:

• Sandy Box

3D Printer / CNC Capes:

• BeBoPr++
• Replicape
• Rosetta Bone
• CRAMPS (Cape version of RAMPS)
• BUMPS
• tBone

CNC Machine Control Capes:

• bbb_parport
• Xylotex BareBonesCNC
• Xylotex BeagleCNC BBB_DB25/26
• PBX-BB
• PMDX-432 K9 CNC I/O
• Furaday Isolated Cape
• Necitec CNC Cape
• Optocape CNC Cape
• Dual Motor Controller Cape
• LPT-Cape / Io-1
• K9 SmorgasBoard

The boards are ordered loosely based on availability and my personal experience with them.  Boards at the top of the list are real and available for purchase, while boards at the bottom are whimsical fancy (vaporware).  Do not infer anything about the usefulness of these boards or suitability for your particular application from their position in the list.

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Turnkey Systems:

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Sandy Box

Details
Designer	Alexander Rössler
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	5*
Off Board Driver Type	DB25
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	0
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	0-8*
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 0-8*
NOTE: There are 18 digital I/O that can be switched between step/dir for motor drivers and digital I/O as needed for a particular machine.  It is also possible to use some I/O pins as an I2C bus for expansion (outboard A/D, I/O expander, etc). Where to buy: The Cool Tool

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3D Printer Capes:

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BeBoPr++ (also BeBoPr / BeBoPr-Bridge / BeBoPr+)

The first real, shipping board for controlling a 3D printer with your BeagleBone.  These boards are known to work with LinuxCNC and the MachineKit images, and several people (including me) are using this board to control real machines.

Details
Designer	Bas Laarhoven
On Board Drivers	4
On Board Driver Type	Pololu Sockets
Off Board Drivers	5
Off Board Driver Type	16 pin header
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	3
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	6
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	3 / 0
Where to buy: The BeBoPr++ is available directly from the designer (email for details). The original version (usable on a BeagleBone Black if you obtain a Bridge board) may still be available from some of the following vendors: Mouser DigiKey Newark / Element 14  BoardZoo If you do not buy your board directly from the designer, you will not get any connectors and you will get the original board designed for the BeagleBone White.  You will need to purchase at least two power connectors to get the board working.  Also, if you have a BeagleBone Black and would like to use the HDMI port, you need a Bridge Board, which you can make yourself or I am selling boards pretty much at cost so you can avoid the 2+ week wait from OSH Park. Support Forum: http://forum.bebopr.info/ Manual: Available via download from github.

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Replicape / Replicape-plus

Details
Designer	Elias Bakken
On Board Drivers	5
On Board Driver Type	DRV8825 soldered on-board
Off Board Drivers	0
Off Board Driver Type	N/A
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	3
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	6
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	3 / 3
NOTE: This board requires setup via I2C and SPI, and will not work properly with LinuxCNC and my MachineKit images until this setup code is written.  If anyone gets this working, please share your code. Where to buy: Thing-Printer.com

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The Rosseta Bone

Details
Designer	Bart Dring
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	5
Off Board Driver Type	DB25 / RAMPS / GRBL
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	3
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	6
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	Depends on shield
Additional features: This is an interface board to connect the BeagleBone to a RAMPS or GRBL Arduino shield, or to to a conventional CNC stepper driver via DB25. Where to buy: Schematics are linked on the buildlog post.  I am not currently aware of any PCB design files or boards available for sale.

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CRAMPS (Cape version of RAMPS)

Details
Designer	Charles Steinkuehler
On Board Drivers	6
On Board Driver Type	Pololu Sockets
Off Board Drivers	Not Yet
Off Board Driver Type	SPI Expansion
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	4
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	6
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	5 / 2
More information: Design page on RepRap Wiki Design files on github Thread on RepRap Forums A design by Charles Steinkuehler (your friendly blog host!) converting the RAMPS-FD into a BeagleBone Cape. This is intended to address what I see as shortcomings with the currently available capes. Several CNC breakout boards are available at reasonable prices, but they don't easily support 3D printers (no heater outputs or Pololu sockets). The available capes that target 3D printing (BeBoPr and Replicape) are excellent designs, but both are complex and expensive. The RAMPS and RAMPS-FD designs are simple, functional, and inexpensive. I hope to keep that combination with the Cape version. Where to buy: PCB Design is available from OSH Park Assembled boards are available from Pico Systems

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BUMPS (BeagleBone Universal Multi Pololu Steppers)

Details
Designer	Henner Zeller
On Board Drivers	5
On Board Driver Type	Pololu Sockets
Off Board Drivers	0
Off Board Driver Type	N/A
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	3
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	3
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	2 / 2
More information: Design files on github BeagleBone Black cape hosting Pololu stepper driver boards (and derivatives). This helps making use of readily available drivers. Right now just an experimental board to make hacking on BeagleG simpler, but eventually meant to help have a full 3D printing (and CNC) solution with BeagleBone + Bumps. Where to buy: Not yet available for purchase, but the design is open source and can be  built by anyone.

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tBone

Details
Designer	tBone Team
On Board Drivers	5
On Board Driver Type	3x 4 Amp / 2x 1.5 Amp
Off Board Drivers	No
Off Board Driver Type	N/A
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	3
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	10
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	2 / 1 (expandable)
Additional Features: 3 encoder inputs 1-wire interface Advanced Trinamic stepper drivers This design pairs an on-board Arduino for real-time control with the BeagleBone, so will not work out of the box with LinuxCNC.  It should be possible to use the Arduino instead of the PRU for motion control, but it depends somewhat on specific design choices and I have not been able find schematics on-line for review. Where to buy: Indiegogo

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CapeR

UPDATE: This design is currently deprecated. It looks like the market is fixing the need for CNC capes without my help, and I currently feel making a Cape version of the RAMPS-FD (see CRAMPS, above) is a better way to go than crafting an interface board to an existing RAMPS.

A hypothetical design by Charles Steinkuehler (your friendly blog host!) intended to address several issues:

• Interface to a RAMPS board (this may be unnecessary, if the Rosetta Bone becomes available)
• Allow use of AM335x hardware encoder (primarily for use as a spindle encoder with a step/dir driven machine)
• Optimize the pinout to allow PRU direct inputs to be used for soft encoder inputs (for a true servo system with minimal extra hardware)
• Optimize the pinout to allow PRU emulation of an EPP port (or possibly use the GPMC interface and a tweaked FPGA configuration), allowing use of "smart" off-board controllers, like the Mesa 7I43 or 7I90 for true servo support with no performance restrictions

This may turn into two boards since the RAMPS support and the other features really don't go together well.  If you're using a RAMPS board, you probably don't care about encoders, and if you need encoder inputs, you probably aren't using a RAMPS.

So far, this board is not past the planning stages, although a lot of work and thought has gone into the choice of pins for the I/O.  Note that if you are not trying to do encoder inputs or support EPP communications, the pin assignment for step/dir, limit switches, and the like is pretty much arbitrary.  The PRU and HAL code can read and write any available GPIO pins as readily as any other.  I'll work up a blog post about BeagleBone pinouts for motion control...in the mean time, if you're working on something and want my view on I/O assignments, just send me an e-mail.

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CNC Machine Control Capes:

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bbb_parport

Details
Designer	Alex Joni
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	6
Off Board Driver Type	DB25 / headers
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	4
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	up to30*
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / up to 30*
Additional features: I2C ADC for analog inputs * There are 30 digital I/O which can be independently assigned as inputs or outputs, 12 are typically assigned to the 6 step/dir axis signals, leaving 18 for use as general I/O.  The PRU HAL code can arbitrarily assign any number of GPIO, step/dir, and PWM signals to these 30 I/O pins. Where to buy: http://webshop.juve.ro/ Additional details are available on Alex' blog page.

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Xylotex BareBonesCNC

Details
Designer	Jeff Pollard / Xylotex
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	4+
Off Board Driver Type	DB25 / IDC26
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	0
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	5
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 4
Additional Features: DB25 Where to buy: Xylotex Additional details are available here.

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Xylotex BeagleCNC BBB_DB25/26

Details
Designer	Jeff Pollard / Xylotex
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	5+
Off Board Driver Type	DB25 / IDC26
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	0+
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	4 + EStop
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 3 + Enable
Additional Features: SPI interface available as an option, replacing 4 I/O pins on the DB25 BBB_DB26 includes an IDC header with  16 additional I/O pins, including 6 analog lines and 10 digital signals which can be used as GPIO, extra drives, encoder inputs, etc. Where to buy: Xylotex Additional details are available here.

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Probotix PBX-BB

Details
Designer	Len Shelton / Probotix
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	5
Off Board Driver Type	PBX Headers & screw terminals
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	0
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	5
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 5
Additional Features: RF Isolated Inputs and Outputs Where to buy: Probotix

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PMDX-432 K9 CNC I/O Cape

Details
Designer	Practical Micro Design
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	4+
Off Board Driver Type	IDC26/DB25
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	4
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	18+
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 8+
Additional features: RS-485 port, buffered I2C bus, and more! Video on YouTube Where to buy: PMDX

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Furaday Isolated Cape

Details
Designer	Robotise.It
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	4+
Off Board Driver Type	Analog/PWM
Analog Inputs (0-5V)	4
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	8
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 8
Isolated I/O, 4 encoder inputs + 4 separate optocoupler outputs, designed for machine control using servo amplifiers or VFD with a BeagleBone. Where to buy: Robotise.It

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Necitec CNC Cape

Details
Designer	Necitec
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	4
Off Board Driver Type	Step/Dir
Analog Inputs (0-5V)	0
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	16
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 8
Isolated inputs, buffered outputs. Includes a pre-configured uSD card with Machinekit installed, sample configurations, and a setup program for adapting system parameters. Where to buy: Kickstarter

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Optocape CNC Cape

Details
Designer	Dean Gouramanis
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	4-6
Off Board Driver Type	Step/Dir
Analog Inputs (0-5V)	4
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	10
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 15+4
Design files on github Isolated I/O 4 solid-state-relay outputs (500 mA) 12-bit color LVDS video Isolated serial port (UART4) Where to buy: Tindie

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Dual Motor Controller Cape

Details
Designer	Exadler
On Board Drivers	2
On Board Driver Type	DC Motor
Off Board Drivers	0
Off Board Driver Type	N/A
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	0
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	0 + 2 Encoders
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 / 0
NOTE:  This cape is controlled via the I2C bus, so it is not really appropriate for conventional LinuxCNC axis control.  It should be possible, however, to use this cape for ancillary functions (tool changers or similar) that do not need fully coordinated motion, or for slow feed rates. Hardware details and software details are on github. Where to buy: Exadler Technologies

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LPT-Cape / Io-1

Details
Designer	Jon Pry
On Board Drivers	0
On Board Driver Type	N/A
Off Board Drivers	2
Off Board Driver Type	IDC26/DB25
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	0
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	10
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	0 /24
This cape is a true parallel port for your BeagleBone, supporting 5V signals and the standard x86 style PC parallel port register interface.  Uses only 12 pins on the BeagleBone expansion headers. This board should also allow interfacing to 'smart' parallel port devices, such as the Mesa 7i43, with minor updates to the LinuxCNC HAL drivers. Software details are on github. Where to buy: Not yet available

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K9 SmorgasBoard

Details
Designer	Practical Micro Design
On Board Drivers	4
On Board Driver Type	Pololu Sockets
Off Board Drivers	8+
Off Board Driver Type	DB25
Analog Inputs (thermistor)	2
Digital Inputs (limit switches)	4+
Heater & Fan Outputs ( High power / Low power)	2 / 2
Additional features: Thermocouple input, Encoder input, RS-232 and RS-422 ports, buffered I2C bus, and more! Where to buy: This board is not available for purchase.  It was a proof of concept design and is now available as the PMDX-432 K9 CNC I/O Cape listed above.