electronics

What is the recommended electronics for building a mendelmax printer.
Its quite confusing there are so many to choose from. built they vary a bit in price. The gen4 kit on ebay is 154 GBP
(270USD). Sanguinololu seems bit cheaper about 80 pounds. Gen 7 about 90 pounds. printrboard 80 gbp
What are the advantages of the different options?

Generation 7 Electronics v1.31
ramps
printrboard
Sanguinololu
gen4

I have done a bit of soldering but I am not an expert in electronics, is it worth having a go at putting a board together myself?
Do I need Opto EndStops? I bought some mechanical endstops, are these also required?
With the gen7 there is also an option for built with pololus. Do I need pololus?

Thanks!

Out of those options I recommend the Sanguinololu. It is a nice, compact, and inexpensive solution. I would no recommend anything with built-in stepper drivers, since if you kill one you have to replace the whole board instead of a $15 USD driver.

RAMPS is excellent and can support two extruders, though it is a bit expensive.

gen4 (MakerBot electronics) is far too expensive IMHO.

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Generation 7 Electronics v1.31

Gen7 v1.3.1 is old, the current version is v1.4. It costs:

PCB, including developer support: GBP 11.30
Components, including ATmega 1284P: GPB 15.20
Connectors: GPB 12.45
4x Pololus/StepSticks: 4x GPB 6.50 = GPB 26.-
USB-TTL adapter: GPB 3.-

Total: GPB 67.95, all prices including value-added tax.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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Do I need Opto EndStops?

Mechanical endstops usually work, too. Many people even recommend them. They're less sensible against light noise (i.e. the sun shining onto your printer), but a bit more sensitive against electromagnetic noise.

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With the gen7 there is also an option for built with pololus. Do I need pololus?

Pololus/StepSticks aren't really optional as long as you want to drive a stepper motor.

BTW., currently, there are two licensed sellers of Gen7: paoparts.com and me. Another one soon. I'm aware some people on ebay simply ignore licensing, decide on your own wether this should be supported.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

performace wise you can get best quality prints with these electronics?
also I assume the price quoted is for drilling soldering and assemling the electronics. How difficult is it to do?

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but a bit more sensitive against electromagnetic noise.

Why? In the inactive state the switch is just a short circuit. Any noise is picked up by inductive coupling to the cable which is the same for an opto.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I will also opt for mechanical endstop...piece of mind with the clicking sound. I used to have too much trouble with the optical switch, the sun and CFL will affect it.

Performance wise they are pretty much the same, mechanically limited.

If you have Arduino Mega available (like me - there are local Arduino Mega clone selling cheaply), I would suggest RAMPS structure. It offers more pins too so expansion is possible.
You need polulu/stepstick, or some other stepper drivers. The Allegro chip cannot be soldered by hand because of the large thermal pad underneath. If you could obtain other stepper drivers, you definitely can connect the Arduino and Drivers with some simple board, I did just that - and that would do the job. After all, those eletronics are just AVR (CPU) + Stepper Drivers + MOSFET for heat.

Oh - do think about Power supply. IIRC Gen7 and Sanguinolulu accept ATX power supply plug, while RAMPS doesn't (or you need to wire that up yourself)

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Why? In the inactive state the switch is just a short circuit.

It's what I sum up from user experiences posted here in the forum, not more. So far I haven't seen a comparison which would allow a well founded judgement.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

I am new to Reprap 3D Printing. I was wondering, can I use stepper driver like DQ420MA from ebay with nema 17 to control the xyz & extruder? Or do I need to get one of those board like Sanguinololu?

appreciate your feedback.

Looks like a bit of overkill to me but it should work.

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

That would only replace one of the Pololu stepper drivers so you would need 4 and then you still need an Arduino of some sort if you want to run RepRap firmware.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

nophead Wrote:
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> That would only replace one of the Pololu stepper
> drivers so you would need 4 and then you still
> need an Arduino of some sort if you want to run
> RepRap firmware.

This.

You could use pretty much any RepRap controller solution such as RAMPS or Sanguinololu, minus the Pololu stepper drivers, and just wire those stepper drivers into the Pololu sockets. Shouldn't be a big deal.

I don't see why you'd want to though, as those are more expensive than Pololus, which work just fine for our application. Having a driver capable of 128th microstepping is not really useful in our application, as it wouldn't really increase positioning accuracy and current controllers probably couldn't keep up with the step rate for reasonable speeds.

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