pravda:
Most importantly, do the Arduino/microcontrollers posses "real-time features" due to their simplified electronics? I am surprized, shocked even, at how well the Arduino/GRBL seems to be overcoming this biggest hurdle...real-time pulse consistency.
Microcontrollers are 100% real-time and deterministic.
You should be shocked at Windows/Linux CNC controllers. :~You can also see TinyG
https://github.com/synthetoswhich I have been told (by no less an authority then the author of TinyG) is much better then GRBL.
It looks like they also have a version for the Due.
Wow. TinyG looks awesome. 50mhz clock speed. It seems to make the most sense to have the pulse stepping done on a specialized board vs pc based RT kernels.
This really takes a huge burden off of the client side programming job. Totally changes the equation in the CNC landscape by eliminating the parallel port pulsing standard model of doing things. This is even better than the new USB stepper drivers. This is like the big fancy industrial grade CNC centers do things. Awesome.
I wish you told me months ago though. haha
You answered my main question which was 'do microcontrollers naturally good at real time/deterministic jobs'. Excellent.
Cheers,
Bill