Arduino 2650 blew up... with RAMPS 1.4

hi,

today when i tried connecting an USB cable to the Arduino while still powered by the RAMPS 1.4 board... the arduino just fried its power regulator chip next to the power socket.

tried with another arduino board using the same RAMPS 1.4 board and even this got fried....

wondering what is happening? inputs highly appreciated...

To much current being drawn

you have a short or something plugged in backwards

Plugging 3 wire endstops in backwards will blow this nearly everytime.

thanks for the reply,

this is the first time i am assembling a 3d printer...

can you please explain by what is "plugging 3 wire end stops in backwards" means?

all my mechanical end stops are having 3 wires... Positive-Negative-Signal and the RAMPS1.4 board has pins coloured in RED-BLACK-BLUE.

the connectors are plugged in proper sequence.

3 pin endstop have 3 wires, +5v, gnd and Signal

Plugged in correctly the Signal pin is connected to GND or +5v via the switch

Plugged in backwards however the +5v is connected to GND or signal. When 5v is connected to ground this draws to much current and will kill the voltage regulator

Ie since the ramps endstops pins has no keys, some people plug them in backwards


The next likely culprit is stepper drivers in backwards..

A picture of your controller and how its wired would help out a lot here.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2017 03:09AM by Dust.

sent the board for replacement.

will photograph it once i get the new replacement.

i am still worried what if it happens again... this time there will be no replacement :-)

If the problem is specific to having the USB cable plugged in then it's a problem with the power supply or the ground connection between the RAMPS and the power supply. Make sure you are using sufficient gauge cables between the PSU and RAMPS and that they are firmly held by the connector. Ideally you should use crimped ferrules on the wire ends, but failing that, bare twisted wires are ok. Don't solder the wire ends. Use two wires of 16 gauge or larger to carry ground current between the psu and ramps. Use a voltmeter to check for DC offset voltage (or AC, but be afraid if you find any significant AC voltage) between the -ve output of the PSU and the shield of the USB cable. Don't plug the USB cable into the printer when it's powered on if you find a DC offset.

It's unusual to blow the regulator on the arduino with a ground loop problem, so I'm not sure that this is what you have, but it's also unusual for an endstop issue to have anything to do with the usb cable.

It's not too hard to replace a regulator with a soldering iron. I did it after I plugged in an endstop backwards. The regulators are super cheap, and the pads are big.

so found out...

it was the X Axis endstop which was faulty... and when plugged it shorted the Arduino...

replaced the endstop and now it's started working.

long way to go...

do we have any ready deployable Prusa i3 firmware ready to be downloaded and flashed??

thanks to all you guys for the excellent support....

RAMPS strikes again!

Amazing we don't have anything better yet.

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Quote
bobc
RAMPS strikes again!

Amazing we don't have anything better yet.

There are several better' choices for printer control boards if you're willing to pay the money, or did you mean specifically a different adapter board for arduino? It is a shame that we don't have a good ramps-like adapter for the STM32 family of development boards, although I guess we could just use their reference design.

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bobc
RAMPS strikes again!

Amazing we don't have anything better yet.

We have lots of controller boards that are better than Arduino/RAMPS. But most are manufactured to much better quality standards, and the best ones help fund their developers so that they can go on making improvements and develop the next generation. So they cost more than RAMPS. Sadly, most of the kit manufacturers and many home-build users choose the cheapest electronics they can find.

Arduino/RAMPS may be unique in that shorting Vcc to ground by mis-wiring an endstop switch blows the voltage regulator. The controller boards that I am associated with are designed to withstand this and several other common wiring faults.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2017 04:43PM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

i am sure ready for a better board... could you suggest some?

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saintofinternet
i am sure ready for a better board... could you suggest some?

Duet Wifi. I'm biased because I helped to design it, but you won't find a better board. 32-bit, easy firmware configuration using a text file on the SD card (no need to recompile and re-upload the firmware), up to 256x microstepping (which makes the motors very quiet), fully functional web interface - including fast upload of gcode files to the SD card, configuration file editor and firmware updating. And of course software control of stepper motor currents. The only time I wouldn't recommend it is if WiFi is not suitable for you for some reason. In that case you could use the Duet 0.8.5, or wait a couple of months for the Duet Ethernet.

Amongst the 8-bit boards, the best ones IMO are the RAMBO and RAMBO Mini. But they don't provide the easy firmware configuration, high microstepping drivers, or the web interface.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2017 02:54AM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Duet wifi is a great looking controller that seems very well thought out. Possibly not enough emphasis is given in the marketing to the stepper drivers that are used. The TMC2660 is a really nice chip - a major step up from the A4988 and DRV8825 modules that most of us are using. They are also expensive which must contribute to the price of the board, so it's worth making sure that people understand the value they are getting.

Yes the TMC2660 drivers are really nice. Users keep saying how much quieter they made their printer than it was before (this is because of the x256 microstepping - and the next question is usually where they can buy quieter fans). At a given motor current, the the TMC2660 generates less than half the amount of heat of a standard A4982 or A4988 driver - so they cen be used at higher currents. They also cost more than twice as much as the A4988.

Another thing people like about Duets is the web interface, which can be used from a PC, smartphone or tablet - or all 3 at once. See [reprap.org] for pictures and more info. We recently added visualisation of the bed height map to the web interface too.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

It proves that RAMPS is good enough. Many people dont need better than RAMPS.

I've been through both stages.

Stage 1 - I want to play around with building/owning a 3D printer - I am not sure its for me yet. I want to do this at low cost. So use ramps and mega, if you fry your mega, repair it or buy a new one they cost £10 at most (probably less).

Stage 2 - I have been 3D printing for a while and now what I want is high quality, or high speed (or both ) at this stage I am not adverse to spending some money, as you don't get amazing for cheap. Buy a 32 bit controller, and I am biased as I now have 2 Duet Wifi cards, they are very, very good and its an active firmware things are developing really well, and really responsively to users needs.

You can still kill a duet wifi card, but there is a lot more thought put into making that harder to do, and you are going to be more careful it cost you 10 times more than your ramps board.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Quote
DjDemonD
You can still kill a duet wifi card, but there is a lot more thought put into making that harder to do...

Watch this space, I have a video on How Not To Treat Your 3D Printer Electronics nearly ready for release!

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].