Generation 6 motherboard

Will this be the only board I need. I've done some research and it's been saying that that is the only electronics I need. Except stepomotors etc. Can anyone tell what I need for the electronics side because I am confused.
Also has anyone any links to any UK sellers of the electronics.

You'll need Gen6, a power supply, 4-pin molex connectors for the motors, cables (4 way... [www.radioshack.com] is what was recommended to me), the four motors, and opto switches (unless you got the kit here, which includes optos)... oh yeah, you'll need nichrome wire and a thermistor too... did I miss anything?

Whats the nichrome and the thermistor for? Is the thermistor for a sensor that plugs directly into the mother board?

The thermistor is a temperature sensor. You will need one for the extruder, and another for the heated bed if you go for one of those.

Gen6 includes all the support components for it, so you just need to plug it into the board.

Nichrome is used for making the heating elements on the extruder and the bed. If you are buying from Mendel Parts, then you may as well get an aluminium heater block and save yourself the hassle. You can also heat the bed with resistors rather than nichrome, making it possible to avoid the stuff entirely.

You can also, of course, heat the extruder with a wire-woung ceramic resistor in an aluminum block w/ embedded thermistor.

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I'm building it with Baling Wire

Hi Matthew

Cheapest solution is to build Pololu strip board electronics.

[reprap.org]

Works very well and you will learn a lot about how it all works.

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Regards

Ian

Gen6 has the downside that if a component breaks - which can happen in the beginning you need someone that can solder SMD-components to replace it. It needs an additional set of electronics if you want to control a heated bed. And you need plenty of time to wait for its arrival as mendelparts is quite overworked.
On the other hand you get a small and neat board that does all the work for you. so if you don't want to experiment a lot and can live with having to control the heated bed over additional components it is a good solution. I have mine running now after replacing the mosfet I blew.
Be aware: Gen6 has no fuses at all, if you have a short anywhere the magic smoke WILL come out.
It is strong enough to handle Nema23 steppers and can also handle two Nema17 in serial on one driver (I use that on my Z axis).

As a matter of interest, how did you blow the MOSFET? I suggested to Camiel that he should be using protected MOSFETs and he argued it would shut down a PC PSU before the one he used blew.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

That was easy :
I got a wrong resistor from my dealer and did not check its value before using it. it had 0,2 Ohm instead of 6,8. If anyone else blew his Mosfet (T1, the part close to the heater) i have 9 in Spare - they come in packages of 10.
In the meantime I added a 5 A fuse to the powersupply that powers my Gen6. It did not shut down when I blew the mosfet, It did hardly notice, it is rated 18A at 12V so it did not notice. Surprising enough that only the MOSFET blew.

... i've managed to kill a FET rated with 60Amps continuously with something about 20Amps with slightly underoptimal cooling

It heated until molten solder squeezed out from the housing ... i think the chip will be OK, but the internal connections came loose ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Has anyone got Gen6 running with ReplicatorG software..??
I haven't had a reply from MendelParts forum yet either.

I also have generation 6 electronics and am having issues with my heater.

When I connect with repsnapper my heater will not heat and the thermistor temperature reads 799b or therabouts.

If I connect with my heater unplugged the heater light on the board glows bright green, if I connect with the heater connected the light is dim to the point of barely on. There is 5v at the pins.

Any advise on what is wrong with my board?

Thank you

Could it be, that you mixed up the connectors? it looks a bit like the thermistor is used on the port to measure the temperature and the other way round.

Thank you Rkoeppl

Turns out that I had not been concentrating and had wired the thermistor to the heater pins and the resistor to the thermistor pins, doh!