New member and some quick questions

G day all

i'm Dylan and i've just commited to building a Prusa Mendel (plastic parts ordered) so i thought i would introduce myself. I'm a uni student based in clayton with chemistry being my focus, from the forum it looks like there are a number of other reprapers around

Questions
i'm trying to cost the electronics for the prusa build, if any of you could spare some wisdom that would be great
i have been looking around and from what i understand electronics wise these should be all the parts i need
1x RAMPS board
1x Ardunio Mega
4 x stepper drivers
3 x end stop sensors
5 x nema 17 stepper motors
(and all the various wire and other conectors)

i have my own jewlers lathe so i plan on making the hot end myself (we'll see how it goes), i plan on using the wades geared extruder however i'm not sure what i will use for the thermal insulator?

does any one have any suggestions on the best places to source the electronics to melbourne?

hope to hear from you
happy reprapping

HI..

Welcome to the world of reprap..

I can supply all your needs if you are looking at RAMPS. I have in stock RAMPS 1.3 assembled, mega 1280, stepper drivers, 70oz motors. I also sell hobbed bolts for your extruder.

A full set with all you listed would cost $300.00 posted.

Auzze

DylanJ Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> G day all
>
> i'm Dylan and i've just commited to building a
> Prusa Mendel (plastic parts ordered) so i thought
> i would introduce myself. I'm a uni student based
> in clayton with chemistry being my focus, from the
> forum it looks like there are a number of other
> reprapers around
>
> Questions
> i'm trying to cost the electronics for the prusa
> build, if any of you could spare some wisdom that
> would be great
> i have been looking around and from what i
> understand electronics wise these should be all
> the parts i need
> 1x RAMPS board
> 1x Ardunio Mega
> 4 x stepper drivers
> 3 x end stop sensors
> 5 x nema 17 stepper motors
> (and all the various wire and other conectors)
>
> i have my own jewlers lathe so i plan on making
> the hot end myself (we'll see how it goes), i plan
> on using the wades geared extruder however i'm not
> sure what i will use for the thermal insulator?
>
> does any one have any suggestions on the best
> places to source the electronics to melbourne?
>
> hope to hear from you
> happy reprapping

Do you provide the boards assembled or unassembled?

As Auzze said, welcome to the world of RepRap.

From memory, Auzze's boards are assembled (definitely RAMPS, maybe not the endstop boards).

Also, if you've been reading this part of the forum, you'll know that we have regular meetups every 2 (or so) months. Keep an eye out for the next one. We got 16 people last time, and my garage was full to bursting with 3D printers and people.

In between the meetups, a lot of us meet up at CCHS (The Connected Communities Hacker Space aka HackMelbourne). They meet most Tuesdays, and also one weekend a month (usually last Saturday/Sunday of the month), currently at a non-public address in Camberwell. See the website for more details.

Cheers Cefair i'l will definititly check that out, sounds very interesing.

as for the electronics
do i actully need the stepper drivers? does the RAMPS board have its own stepper drivers built in? i'm a bit confused by this statement in the wiki page for RAMPS "The modular design includes plug in stepper drivers and extruder control electronics" does this mean the board has plugs for stepper drivers to conect to or does it mean it has its own stepper drivers? Looking at other prusa mendals i carn't see the stepper drivers, i'm not sure if this is because there not there or if because they are attached onto the control boards?

HI..

I sell RAMPS 1.3 board assembled. I can also supply the stepper drivers which plug in to the ramps board.
The endstops I supply are microswitches as I found thay work great.
The mega 1280 is flashed with the latest version of sprinter, also come with an USB cable,

Auzze

DylanJ Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do you provide the boards assembled or
> unassembled?

There are sockets on the RAMPS boards for the stepper driver to plug in to.

The stepper driver that fits them is the Pololu A4983, which has 2 rows of holes down each side. With RAMPS, you solder headers on to the A4983 boards, and then plug them directly onto the sockets on the RAMPS board.

Board with 4 x A4983 stepper boards

Hope this helps.

PS: Yes, the image above is for v1.4, which is absolutely brand new. The v1.3 board is perfectly fine (I myself have a v1.1), and the advantage of the RAMPS design is that you can change the main board and keep using the same stepper driver boards no problems.

Cheers guys, now i'm getting the picture

If you're a poor uni student, you may also want to have a look at the Sanguinololu - it's not Arduino based, and usually comes in much cheaper than the RAMPS, but with some slight limitations.

As to your thermal insulator, just about all hot ends use PEEK these days. Have a look at the data sheet for it - it's pretty much the duck's nuts of engineering thermoplastics. It's pretty expensive, though, so only use it where you have to.

If you're looking for hot ends to copy, your best bet would probably be to start with the 'version 6' hot-end. It has many fans, and should be fairly easy to machine.