Help me get my "new" Mendel out of the stone age...

Hello all and welcome to project revival.

The Backstory:
I have inherited a mendel from my older brother that we tried to get working a couple years ago. I helped him with the build but he handled all the software/firmware so I am in the dark on what it has on it now. We got it sort of working (printed some calibration cubes) and that is about it. Now, I have decided to get the poor thing working again and have hit a wall or two. More like 17 haha.

The Stats:
Gen3 electronics (reprap motherboard v1.2, Extruder controller v2.2, stepper drivers v2.3)
Heavily modified Mk5 makerbot direct drive Stepper extruder.
The hot end was the standard setup back in those days with nichrome.

What Works:
Just to do a quick test I opened up pronterface and can control all of the axis and the extruder so everything still works!!!

What I need the reprap community for:
Jumping back into the 3d printing world with only a couple year gap, I was shocked to see how far it has come since the old gen3 days. My goal is simply to produce the best possible prints, for the least amount of money, using as much of what I already have as I can. So after scouring the internet for more than a few hours I just need your guy’s help on a few things.

1st: Is it worth it to purchase one of the gen3+ boards or the 3G 5D shield boards?
2nd: I hate the fact that these steppers only do ½ step (could be wrong?) I’ve seen all the pololu work arounds for gen3 electronics, is it worth or or better to scrap the gen3 electronics and move up in the world?
3rd: If sticking with the gen3 electronics, what is the best firmware/software combo (with/without upgrades mentioned above)?
(I know each of these are extremely biased questions but I want to hear what people think these days)

What I think is my answer (just to show you guys I am not leaving it all up to you)
What I have narrowed it down to was getting a gen3+ board, modding the x and y with 2 of these (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:26546) allowing me to keep most of what I have and giving me more accurate prints with the ability to use newer firmware (like sprinter).

If I haven’t lost you already than thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy post. All comments and suggestions are welcome!

I would say that your plan is the cheapest way to be able to use the newer firmwares and have 1/8 or 1/16 microstepping on the X and Y axis. A good solution I think. You might want to add an LCD & encoder while your at it so you can use your 3d printer w/o being attached to a computer.

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

One thing to check is whether the hotend is using ptfe structurally - this design has been abandoned because it fails due to ptfe creep after just 10s of hours. Post a picture if you're not sure, but if it's an old design you might well want to buy a newer one, so it doesn't fail right when you want to get it working.

The PTFE is fully constrained in a MK5 hotend.

Hmmm thanks for the replies!

I will certainly watch the extruder for now but after the hardware upgrade I will do an extruder upgrade as well than.
Is the sprinter, sli3r, pronterface combo where it is at these days as well? or would you recommend something different for my set up?

Thanks again guys I can't wait to get this going again!

For firmwares, Marlin is arguably a newer/ more advanced version of Sprinter. It has read-ahead and wont stop at corners and does arches in a faster and cleaner manner. There is also "Repetier", "Sailfish", and "Teacup" firmwares.

I cannot tell you which is best that is something you must decide.

I use Marlin on my prusa.


For slicing, I use slic3r. I think most people do as well. Though skeinforge is much much more customizable it is also more complicated.

For your host/interface software, I use pronterface, again I think most people do. But the new Repetier-host is a nice looking program and I have every intention of trying it out. It has some really nice features including a 3D rendering of your gcode,

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2013 12:38AM by xclusive585.