FYI, I’m using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W driving a Big Tree Tech SKR Pico v1.0 board (which contains TMC2209 driver chips) to update MakerBot Replicator Mini mechanicals, running Klipper sw. Trinamic (now part of Applied Devices) provides a software tool, TMCL-IDE, for testing, designing and prototyping stepper systems for use with their TMCxxxx chips. It’s designed to work with their prototyping and evaluation kits, which typically cost in the $150 range. In my case, purchasing one of their hardware development kits would be wasteful, since I already have equivalent functionality in my RPi + SKR hardware. They also provide a Python-based software driver library for their chips (although I haven’t yet determined if this would be useful in porting their TMCL-IDE to work my hardware.)
Has anyone here used the TMCL-IDE (Windows and Linux-based) in the context of 3D printers, RPi’s, 3rd-party driver boards, etc?
Note: A related question: “is the TMCL-IDE able to comunicate with an arduino setup and not an eval board” was posted 3 months ago on the ADI Engineer Zone Forum, but hasn’t received any replies.
Message #general
They have script examples here:
It looks like it’s just a way to create motion control systems if you haven’t already made your own.
I think it’s just Applied Devices way of giving customers that are just starting a project something to work with to design, debug, and test their prototype/system without having to jump through the hoops “from scratch”.
Klipper of course already has all the motion control work done, so using the TMCL-IDE would be redundant.
As for if it’s right for you and your project, no one can decide that but you.
In terms of 3D Printers though Klipper already did the hard work.
In the TMCL-IDE you’d have to define each endstop switch, the motion kinematics, sensors etc.
Thanks for the quick reply. Much of what you say is true. But the real value of TMCL-IDE for me is as a diagnostic tool. It has capabilities of recording and plotting lots of variables for a stepper under test. For example, I hoped to use it to determine specifications for undocumented motors, such as torque, acceleration for a given current, rotational inertia, etc.
If I understood the software structure of Klipper better, I would probably be able to get much of what I want within that environment. So another question is: Is their architectural documentation on the internal structure of the Klipper system, including the API between the host and the MCU?