Techzone

Has any one gotten products from Techzone communications? What did you think?

Have a look at [forums.reprap.org].

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I got a Huxley kit from them.

Cheap, but old design with flaws (hot end had to be replaced for instance - it cannot work for long without crashing into the bed as it is provided)

Would have probably costed me less to source a prusa myself, would have been easier/faster to assemble, and a better design with less problems.

That said, very good kit to learn about reprap assembly.

I have built a kit with their kit for printed parts. Their support is helpful, however it can be few and far between. If you buy their electronics, the monolithic set has been working perfectly for me since i traded their gen3 for it. the gen3 is harder to put together with not enough documentation. also, their hardware seems to skip corners which caused me to have to buy more m3,m4 screws so i had enough to complete the build. i would recommend their monolithic electronics as the monolithic set was almost plug and play. it also is set up to add a heated bed and or a fan. I would also recommend you to buy the vitamins and printed parts else ware. if you have other questions about techzone you are more than welcome to pm me





Morrist

Yes the monotronics board works well as is, plug and play, etc.

I wouldn't recommend it anyway, because it won't be easy to change firmware : they have a modified version (of an old firmware) to handle their custom hotend/bed temperature manager daughter board

If you want your machine to elvolve with repprap technology, you'll get stuck later on : If you want to change to another firmware you'd have to report these custom firmware code changes into this new firmware, which could prove not easy - unless some good willing firmware coder do the change and make it public.

DeuxVis has a point, evolving with the changes in firmware etc will not be very easy. however, if you are happy with what the setup's can currently do, and are not technically inclined this board will work alright. i am using it in the meantime, someday i would like to learn more about arduino and how the reprap's work on a software/firmware level and get on board with the ramps electronics



Morrist

Tip Problems:

After first hooking everything up and running repprapper software, the temperature or (Nozzle Current) read around 20 -25 normal room temperature. When I clicked heat on the Temp would jump up to 32767 then bounce around from what appeared to be the right temp and then back to 32767. Sometimes a completely random number would pop up usually around 2000 – 10,000, but mostly it would sit on 32767. When clicking the Heat off button the temperature or (Nozzle Current) seemed resume back to whatever temperature it was at the time, usually roughly around 200 degrees and then steadily decrease back down until it got to room temperature.

At first I though the tip was faulty and rebuilt it after it melted itself !(and also purchased another 0.25 tip) . But after testing it Im still getting the same strange readings !!!???? I also tested it out on some filament to make sure it wasn't a problem with insulation, but still got the same readings.

Can some one with a Monotronics board tell me whether or not they get the same readings ? is this normal ? Or do I have a faulty extruder board ??

Any one else destroyed a tip ??

I never had that display with my monotronics.
Even when I had a shortcut between the nichrome and the thermocouple, it was still showing an averagely appropriate temperature.
This said, if you have a multimeter, it's still worth checking there is no continuity there.

For the other question : yes I already destroyed a couple of hot ends :
First one by overheating (there was an extra zero in a skeinforge temperature setting. 1900 °C is too much to ask there I suppose)
The other one had its nichrome (heating) wire cut off because I didn't attach properly the power cables - after some usage the flexing by back and forth movements snapped it.

I've now switched to a Mendel parts V5 hotend. It's easiest to change the heating element (don't waste a barrel) and it doesn't leak or detach from the carriage like the original techzone hotend did (it's secured by an extra peek block and 2 threaded rods, plus the ptfe is constrained by the barrel and not the other way around).

spenc,


i have had that problem and i think i may be able to fix your problem. first you need to make sure that your thermocouple is continuous. i believe it should read somewhere near 7 ohms. i don't know exactly what the error code was, but i used a 1ft shielded cat5 patch cable to connect the board to the extruder tip manager. after doing this the codes disappeared all together. it leads me to believe it is triggered by interference from other wires nearby.

Thanks morrist & Lambert.

Turns out you where right about the cable. I had used a long stranded Ethernet cable to plug into the tip manager. The original cable was to short to reach the extruder when the X axis was all the way to the right. To make it worse I had rolled up the excess cable and cable tied it together !! I had no idea Network cable could produce feed back or electrical noise. Then again I have never used network cable to draw as much current as it takes to heat a small element either. Its a learning curb I guess.

So Im of to the shop to get some Ethernet cable cut to the specific length that I need.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2011 11:56PM by Spenc.

not a problem, spenc. it's nice to see i can help someone after all the help ive received from the community. let me know if you have other strange issues and i'll try to answer them.



Morrist

@ Spenc, I destroyed 2 tips. the design is known to fail but they keep selling it. i bought a hot tip from the user: CdnReprap. he sells a nice adrian extruder tip for $45 and its working great. The x axis carriage does not grip the tip good at all, it gets pushed out, so i screwed it with a wood screw , lame fix but works so far. The monotronics does not work with Skeinforge latest software so teh z doesnt raise, so im on SF38 and noone else uses it anymore. . . still trying to make it work.

thanks. Cheap parts, i recommend getting the wood version if anything, very good support. always sending replacement parts if something breaks.

i recommend makergear or makerbot for a stable investment. if you have money to chug along, then go for these plastic repraps... because you will have to spend more to make it stable...

Spenc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tip Problems:
>
> After first hooking everything up and running
> repprapper software, the temperature or (Nozzle
> Current) read around 20 -25 normal room
> temperature. When I clicked heat on the Temp would
> jump up to 32767 then bounce around from what
> appeared to be the right temp and then back to
> 32767. Sometimes a completely random number would
> pop up usually around 2000 – 10,000, but mostly
> it would sit on 32767. When clicking the Heat off
> button the temperature or (Nozzle Current) seemed
> resume back to whatever temperature it was at the
> time, usually roughly around 200 degrees and then
> steadily decrease back down until it got to room
> temperature.
>
> At first I though the tip was faulty and rebuilt
> it after it melted itself !(and also purchased
> another 0.25 tip) . But after testing it Im still
> getting the same strange readings !!!???? I also
> tested it out on some filament to make sure it
> wasn't a problem with insulation, but still got
> the same readings.
>
> Can some one with a Monotronics board tell me
> whether or not they get the same readings ? is
> this normal ? Or do I have a faulty extruder board
> ??
>
> Any one else destroyed a tip ??

To fix the Z step and use the latest Skeinforge Click here.

All you need to do to make the Monotronics or Remix work with SF 40 and later is to change the e-steps-per mm in the firmware.