Talk:Ultimaker's v1.3 PCB

A few questions:

When will you start selling the PCBs or kits for this shield on your website? How much would they cost?

Will this work with the firmware on the RAMPS page, use the RAMPS firmware but change some of the settings on the configuration.h file, or do you use your own custom firmware?

Is there upcoming support for thermocouples or SD cards?

-ZNahum

Grogyan, I have talked to JohnnyR and he confirms that UltiMaker and UltiMachine are two different companies that are not working together on project or selling each other's parts.

Suggestions & Mistakes

Suggestions:

Have the mosfets be flat on the PCB so heatsinks can be attached to them or have vertical heatsinks added to the board. (They are going to get hot quickly.)

Separate the SPI pins so people can attached SD Cards/Thermistors/etc. to them. (They currently have resistors attached to them so I am assuming that you had originally intended that port to be used for the LCD.)

Have a 5 volt power connector included with the endstop ports so they can power opto/mechanical switches.

Have actual part numbers in the BOM. (i.e. state the tolerance voltage for the capacitors or a manufacture's part number for the capacitor you are using)

Mistakes:

The file name, schematic, BOM, and board files all state that that they are for the version 1.1.

What Grogyan is working on

Suggestions:

-Have the mosfets be flat on the PCB so heatsinks can be attached to them or have vertical heatsinks added to the board. (They -are going to get hot quickly.)

On my board the FETs are mounted vertically, once i've done the layout i'll get it fabbed, and if there is enough space to mount them flat I will. The FETs are rated at 55A, so in theory they shouldn't get hot, because they are power limited by the power supply, typically 60W, or 12V @ 5A max.

-Separate the SPI pins so people can attached SD Cards/Thermistors/etc. to them. (They currently have resistors attached to -them so I am assuming that you had originally intended that port to be used for the LCD.)

SPI is an odd beast, when i've worked on it, it's usually been 1 per communicating device, however the way the board is, having a Proto board tiered above should allow you to access any pins you like.

-Have a 5 volt power connector included with the endstop ports so they can power -opto/mechanical switches.

I can't think of why you want to operated a mechanical switch, like a relay, and most of the time the MAX end stops aren't used, so you can mount them there if you like. If you mean simple mechanical switches, like a micro switch, there there isn't anything you need to do, just plug and play.

• Comment*

The suggestions I made are meant to improve the design. Even though the FETs are rated at a high current, they still can get hot and its better safe than sorry. SPI can work with multiple devices but can only use one of them at a time (the CS determines which device is operating on the port). The power to the switches are mainly for the optoswitches to work. -ZNahum