Jason,
#1. Thanks again for writing a great piece of software. I know it is a tonne of work, and you deserve a pile of respect for it.
I think the key issue at the moment, is that the firmware in the Qihe's is good enough, and works well enough that spending the time to create a driver is low on the totem pole. I want to do it myself, but the problem is that Qihe won't give up the protocol. Odd, as it only adds value to their machine. It is not like we want to open source what they have done so far in terms of software, but OpenPNP is orders of magnitude ahead of them, and they should recognize that it would only strengthen their market by either writing their own driver, or just releasing the protocol, so we can do it ourself.
I my opinion, and based on the motion driver in the current control board (not linearly interpolated), and since it lacks certain hardware assisted features (vac pressure specifically), it would be faster and easier to just rewrite the firmware for the existing board and expose everything to openPNP over ethernet.
What i want to do (in the new year), with some help from a few of my friends (Thommo and GlenEnglish) that we design a complete new control board, with extra IO capabilities (specifically analog for sensors, encoder interfaces for X & Y, and serial / CanBus) that is plug and play with the current wiring, yet fully openPNP compatible, so that it would be a 15 minute swapover from the existing board, and offer a future proof control system.
The Qihe 920 hardware is brilliant, and I would not hesitate to purchase a second unit when the need arises, but they need better software. not that it is buggy, just lacking in features, that a machine base of this capability can truly offer.
R.