techzone commisioning

Hey, seem to have the mechanical construction and the wiring complete. I have a few questions before i plug this thing into the computer.
1.) Techzone claims the firmware and boot loader are on the electronics already. is there a link as to how i set everything up so i can start printing? with the arduino, sanguino and such?
2.) The firmware that is uploaded, is that makerbot firmware or the reprap?

Thanks for your help,



Morrist

If it was pre-loaded by techzone, it should have the standard reprap 5D firmware.

Tour through the links at http://reprap.org/wiki/Mendel_User_Manual and you should learn everything from what software you need to solving extruder problems.

thanks for the links, think i had been looking around there before. in the kit, there is a usb to ttl bouard that connects to the mother board. the usb portion of this board doesnt appear to be usb, does anyoe know what kind of cable connects the computer to the reprap? thanks

Morrist

Isn't it a USB-B socket?

maybe it is, i lack some knowledge of the connectors and names. gonna go to the store tonight and try to find the right cable. thanks andrew

... you need a standard "USB-A-to-B" cable - the "A" is the flat port in your computer, the "B" ist the square port in the Interface (or in common USB-printers too)

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Viktor
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ok, so i have the right power supply. i have a few questions i really need answered. first, the firmware is already on the electronics. so now i need to download the software onto the electronics.
here,[www.reprap.org]
it says to use replicatorg, this is the regular software used for reprap correct? once this is downladed to the reprap via the a to b cable, i can now run the reprap with the reprap program on the computer? thanks for the help, this part seems to really confuse me the most.



Morrist

I have techzone electronics too. Do you have the techzone thermocouple or are you using a thermistor? There is different firmware depending on what you are using for temp control. If i remember correctly, they may preload the firmware for the thermocouple but it would be best to ask them. They are usually very prompt at returning emails and answering questions.

I was not able to get replicator G to work with my electronics. I use repsnapper. That is what Lamber at techzone uses too. Might be worth looking into that if you have trouble.

No. ReplicatorG runs on the computer and communicates with the firmware over the A to B. Its a replacement for the standard software. If you want to run the other available software then you will need to upload new firmware onto the electronics.

bbrigstkd,

i have the techzone thermocouple. lambert told me that the firmware is pre loaded onto the electronics. Here is where i am lost; do i need to use the arduino environment to load anything else into the reprap motherboard? i am not actually sure what replicator g, and repsnapper do. i am confused with this just a little lol. regardless of which one i use, i still use the host software the same in the end correct?

I have been trying to test the board with the arduino blink test, and my board does not seem to show up under tools-boards inside the environment. i think i am mixed up with what is going on. is there any helpful link to what to do with the techzone electronics. if you could break this down step by step it would be much appreciated. I guess my problem is i dont quite understand what the firmware does and how the machine interacts with the computer. the directions for everything seems to be very scattered between wiki links. thanks for your help, im in a little over my head but i am willing to read and learn, i just dont have much of a background in computers.


Morrist

The arduino environment
This is just an IDE for programing Arduino boards. Unless you want to modify the firmware, since it is already pre-loaded you will not need it. If the motherboard is a sanguino instead of a true arduino, you need some type of library or add-on installed. I forget what it was but you shouldn't need it anyhow. Just ignore anything to do with arduino until you want to change the firmware.

Host Software
I'm not sure why it says replicatorG is the ONLY host software that runs. Maybe the firmware being discussed there is not the standard 5d firmware? Maybe it is just really outdated information? Generally, Makerbot users run ReplicatorG and Reprap users run the reprap host, repsnapper, or send.py. Other options may exist, but these seem to be the most popular. Personally, I like to use Skeinforge to turn my STLs into Gcode then I use the Reprap Host or Send.py to send the gcode to my reprap.

Dazed,

This clears alot up for me. So i should be able to use repsnapper, connect it to the correct port, and be able to connect to the printer? If thats the case, that would be great. would really like to be able to get this to work before tomorrow. i go back to university tomorrow night.

how do i go about setting up the drivers and figure out which port it is connected to? i see in repsnapper that you can change the port that it is connected to?


Morrist

Plug in the machine. On your PC, go into the control panel, system, device manager, and check which ports are available. It won't be Com1 or Com2 - those are reserved for physical com ports, reprap uses a USB connection which is only pretending to be a com port. If there is more than one option, then unplug the machine and it should disappear. If you dont have an FTDI driver installed you will be prompted to install a driver when you plug the machine in, you need the FTDI driver from here:
[www.ftdichip.com]

with the machine plugged in, it says usb serial port (com4). im pretty sure yesterday i installed the ftdi driver, i tried uninstalling it and when i plugged the machine in again it said the same thing. maybe there is an issue with the motherboard itsself, because it still says it cannot connect with the printer.