cameroncoats

Arduino is far too slow for HDMI decoding; you need a decent FPGA to get anywhere close. Might be possible with a raspberry pi or similar as this has the DAC etc for composite output already but I'm not sure if you'd get HDMI in easily. Unless you're looking for a project it'll be cheaper to buy a commercial product.

Having just done something similar, your options very much depend on whether BGAs are viable or you need to stick to more forgiving packages. If you can use BGAs, look at TI-AM335x series as used on the beaglebone - there's extensive documentation and software because of the beaglebone and they're around $10-15 in quantity (Cortex-A8 though). They have a build in LCD controller and some models have what TI call PRU - a pair of RISC cores that might be able to replace your M0+. If BGAs are prohibitive, look at the raspberry pi compute module - you will not be able to beat it on price or performance for low to medium quantities. If neither of these suit bear in mind there's a large market for ARM modules sold as CoM or SoM; computer/system on module, these are quite expensive compared to the bare processor but typically include power management, RAM and a few peripherals and are the sensible option for quantities below and approaching 1k units because of the NRE savings.

36awg might be a little on the thin side; what current are you planning on running through it? Table here gives you rough values of what current you can expect to run at - 95°C should be fine.

Don't forget your anti-aliasing filter

Pi 3 is pretty decent, there's not a lot it can't do in terms of embedded computing. The GPU is particularly impressive if you can make use of it.

Magnet wire (enamelled wire) will have thinner insulation than the wire you've used which will help with fitting more turns in. I'd recommend switching particularly as it's much happier with high temperatures.

Trap for young players - if you're lucky enough to find one triple check every single dimension to make sure it will fit your parts. I have been bitten by this more than once; there's nothing worse than having to work backwards and find parts that will fit your PCB

Pmw = 1mw * 10(PdBm/10) PdBm = 10log(Pmw/1mw) So: 13dBm = ~20mw 26dBm = ~400mw

+1 for logic level FETs. Lower RDSON = more better. MOSFETS are absolutely best practice for controlling constant voltage LED strings. The RPi/Arduino is to provide control. The MOSFETS are to drive the LEDs. These are two separate applications. Finally, I'd argue that blindly suggesting addressable LED strip for an application that doesn't require individual LED control is a very poor design choice. There's negligible power dissipation in a properly specced MOSFET in this application and besides, any addressable LED tape is going to use MOSFETS internally for switching. Quick e2a: I don't mean this to come across in the wrong way - currently writing dissertation and I'm very much in serious report writing mode, hence my serious tone here

If any of the servers have iLO/BMC, these will definitely log power failures and more than likely log when the power comes back up

Having thought about it a bit more, it'd be interesting to see if you could work out a vacuum pickup attachment or similar for the 3D printer's existing gantry.

Linear actuator seems like an obvious solution here. They're not too cheap but there's no messing about with linkages etc and you don't need worry about braking etc. Check aliexpress if you don't mind slow shipping. Edit: I take it back; they are cheap: AliExpress

R210s (and most of the recent Dell 1Us) are loud under load but pretty quiet at idle. Generally, don't go for anything older than gen 11 (r210, 310 410 etc) as the power consumption and idle noise are significantly worse. It's worth noting that supermicro have a lot of similar offerings, but stay away from HP unless you can get firmware downloads through work; they're locked down to a support contract. Finally, check out xenserver for virtualisation, it's free and paired with XOA it's actually a really nice virtualisation solution.

Look at trinamic motor drives; TMC428/TMC429 motion controller handles all of the position control & homing etc for up to 3 stepper drivers, you just give it an absolute position over SPI. You can use any stepper driver but you'll find trinamic eval boards that combine a TMC429 with a few of their drives.