I'm presently looking at getting a Smoothieboard (always trying new things) and I'm a little up in the air about if I should fork out the beaucoup coin required for such a board. I was looking at the MKS SBase board which uses smoothieware but costs a fraction of the price of a Smoothieboard 5x and seems to be outfitted more completely.
Every picture I see of the Smoothieboard seems to be lacking an ethernet port (pcb connections are there but no jack) and pinouts for external stepper drivers (once again, placeholder on the pcb but no actual pins). The MKS SBase apparently comes with these preinstalled. Is it just that an early photo is being used to depict the Smoothieboard? Does this board come with these connections installed?
These are deciding factors for the decision on which board to go for. If the Smoothieboard ships with these connections missing, why put out that kind of scratch when there's a board that appears to equal Smoothie (and surpass, from appearances) at a 1/4 of the price?
I get the whole open source ideal and supporting the Smoothieware project and how MKS isn't playing nice but it would seem that I would be paying a hell of a lot more for something that is… 1.more financially attainable 2.serves the same function in the same capacity and 3.has all external connections mounted.
I may be missing something but…convince me.