Alligator Board Q & A

Hi Geotete,

Quote
geotete
All the PC's that I have only have USB3 ports, they don't work with this.
Used a laptop with 3 years and a USB2 port, and the upload was sucess!

I had a different experience.
Both my linux boxes were unable to communicate with the Alligator using bossac v1.3a (the same version as the arduino one).
The kernel sees the Alligator on /dev/ttyACM0, but something goes wrong with bossac and it cannot find any device.

As a last chance,I tried with my asus transformer running win10. It has a single USB3 on the keyboard and it uploaded the kernel flowlessy to the Alligator at the first try.
Thus, it works also with USB3, but it depends a lot on your OS, drivers and host configuration.

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+ Repstrap Schifanoia Delta - AMEGA/RAMPS 1.4, 4x4988 stepper drv., running RepetierFW 0.92 -
HE IeC 1.75 bowden, nozzle 0.4 on a cold bed (300mm)
+ MiniKossel - Alligator board running RRFirmware, HE E3D-lite 0.4 bowden on a cold bed (170mm)

Quote
giampa975
Hi Geotete,

Quote
geotete
All the PC's that I have only have USB3 ports, they don't work with this.
Used a laptop with 3 years and a USB2 port, and the upload was sucess!

I had a different experience.
Both my linux boxes were unable to communicate with the Alligator using bossac v1.3a (the same version as the arduino one).
The kernel sees the Alligator on /dev/ttyACM0, but something goes wrong with bossac and it cannot find any device.

As a last chance,I tried with my asus transformer running win10. It has a single USB3 on the keyboard and it uploaded the kernel flowlessy to the Alligator at the first try.
Thus, it works also with USB3, but it depends a lot on your OS, drivers and host configuration.

gentlemen, I am curious to know, for each of you, did you manage to upload the bits via the UART usb port? or the native USB port?

the reason i ask is my main alligator board broke(again) but this time, only the UART port is down, and i can function with the native port using repetier. I've love to load this onto it, but i've read elsewhere to only upload using the uart and not the native, i'm asking which worked for each of you on the board itself. i get clearly that i should do this using a USB 2 port on my Pc in either case...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2015 03:31PM by EljefedsecurIT.

a little word of warning about the fans, I might need some help determining if and what I did wrong, and what I might do to fix it.


last night, I was in the process of upgrading my system to finally include fan2. I bought a 24v fan, wired it up and plugged it in. all was fine, until I went to test the fan, and I heard some pop, and then my board essentially froze, and I had to make a hard reset. I turned it on again, but then I get the same, almost shorted effect. I unplugged it all, unplugged the new 24v fan and tried to plug in my old 12v fan, but now, my old 12v fan is simply running, without any control. So, I went out and looked at the schematics, and I found that the red line, is rated for +12v, and if my meager engineering skills are anything, I believe I popped the Q1_1 MOSFET, and I believe it fails open as a result. So, I believe either my fan was shorted to begin with which I'm willing to test next and accept, and led to something frying on my board. both my existing 12v fan and another 24v fan seems powered now as well - they simply run, no control whatsoever. so I am assuming the MOSFET.

so, my question is, did I blow the MOSFET to fail source to gate(short?) by nature of how it's allowing other fans to run? any idea how I might be able to test?

did I blow diode D6_1 instead? What should I test and what should I be looking for?

luckily the rest of the board is working, sans 2nd fan, but i'd rather find a fix locally myself rather than try to send it overseas again.

(...and by open I mean it's closed the circuit - fan is powered and running, so it seems that its is failed gate to drain?)

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2015 05:00PM by EljefedsecurIT.

Hi,

With me only with the native USB port, that's the one that is working with me!

Geotete

Unfortunately the schematic doesn't give the part number of Q1_1, so I can't look up its voltage rating. But if the board as a whole is rated for 24V operation, I would be very surprised if it was rated any lower than 30V. Is it possible that you connected the 24V fan the wrong way round, or had a short across it? That might have exceeded the current rating of the mosfet and caused it to fail with a total short.

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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'm having a problem with my boards (two of them, both doing the same thing).

When I connect 12V power, the area around the USB plugs gets warm, very warm. The area on the opposite end of the board, around the 4 large caps also gets hot. This is without anything else connected, only powered up. The green LED's all light up, but this high temperature concerns me.

Has anyone else experienced this issue, or is it an issue? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,

Doc

Quote
EljefedsecurIT

gentlemen, I am curious to know, for each of you, did you manage to upload the bits via the UART usb port? or the native USB port?

I used the native, since the board was not yet plugged to the ATX power supply. I still have to try using the UART.

---

------------
+ Repstrap Schifanoia Delta - AMEGA/RAMPS 1.4, 4x4988 stepper drv., running RepetierFW 0.92 -
HE IeC 1.75 bowden, nozzle 0.4 on a cold bed (300mm)
+ MiniKossel - Alligator board running RRFirmware, HE E3D-lite 0.4 bowden on a cold bed (170mm)

Quote
shteecers

New Price 105Eur, free worldwide shipping, pm only

still available, alligator board barely used, like new.

Quote
geotete
Like I said a few post's ago:
"Hi,

I have for sale a NIB Alligator board 110€, shipped with tracking, worldwide.
Shipment only to confirmed Paypal address, no exceptions.

Geotete"

Same conditions as before, but at 100€!

PM please.

Geotete

I got the PWM/TTL output working, A fix is in the works

Quote
shteecers
I am selling mine Aligator board for 120Eur incl. shipping in europe (Location - Latvia), all questions please pm. Like new used only for couple hours.
Shipping outside europe +10Eur

New ''Christmas price'' 85Eur incl. shipping in europe.
Condition still ''Like new used only for couple hours''

Quote
shteecers

Quote
shteecers
I am selling mine Aligator board for 120Eur incl. shipping in europe (Location - Latvia), all questions please pm. Like new used only for couple hours.
Shipping outside europe +10Eur

New ''Christmas price'' 85Eur incl. shipping in europe.
Condition still ''Like new used only for couple hours''

Hello, I am interested in purchasing the Alligator. It's still available? If you tell me how to buy it, I live in Genoa Italy.
I pay you directly with PayPal, you message Pm

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2015 06:10PM by Micron792.

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Kossel Mini Alligator board , MK4duo 4.3.8, Extruder Bulldog Xl Nozzle 0.4 piatto 170mm, hot End E3d V6

Kossel XL scheda Ultratronics Pro, E3D V6, Titan Extruder in Flying mode, Bltouch, Nextion Enhanced 4:3 MK4duo 4.3.8

Geeetech A20M

Mine is sold, but you can ask ''geotete'' maybe his still available.

Quote
shteecers
Mine is sold, but you can ask ''geotete'' maybe his still available.

I'm sorry I messed with you but then I bought from Alligator Geotete

Hello
I'm planning to change my printer board (corexy printer) and I saw Duet as a nice one to move to...
I like the way reprap firmware works and just now I discovered also Alligator is working with it too..

Did you managed to make it work completely?
@Marco do you plan to mantain the reprap firmware porting updated?


Another solution is octoprint, but I read around that gcode transfer to SD via network is really slow...
Is this true also for this board that has raspberry direct connection?
Thanks!
pietro

Hello Marco,

i ve many Problems to install and running Repetier-Server in an Rasperry Pi 3 with Alligator. The Problem seems to be the Wireing from Rasberry to Alligator, i get no right Connection to the Alligator.
Is it possible to give us an Guide from beginning to running Repetier-Server ? Since you Guide here, there are so many changes in Soft- and Hardware, so i think its time for a new Guide ?

It would help me and i think others a lot .

Greetings from Germany

---

Prusa MK3s
Anycubic Photon Mono 4k

Isel Portalfräse, gesteuert mit TripleBeast und Eding CNC

Quote
JET-A1
Hello Marco,

i ve many Problems to install and running Repetier-Server in an Rasperry Pi 3 with Alligator. The Problem seems to be the Wireing from Rasberry to Alligator, i get no right Connection to the Alligator.
Is it possible to give us an Guide from beginning to running Repetier-Server ? Since you Guide here, there are so many changes in Soft- and Hardware, so i think its time for a new Guide ?

It would help me and i think others a lot .

Greetings from Germany

the rpi is a little tricky at first. i got this to work, but first, your rpi serial port needs to be enabled in raspi-config, and not set for ssh (i believe, it has been a while since i've configured this). 2nd, you should set baud to 115200, the rpi bus can't handle anything faster over uart. that is actually fast enough. also, make sure your firmware is set to uart. the uart on the usb is the same one on the pins, so plugging in the cable should give the rpi power, and serial connectivity at that point.

let us know if that still isn't working.

@pieri70:

i'm building a 2nd printer as a corexy as well. i plan to push the reprapfw on to my 2nd alligator board for that. i'm within about a day to a week of doing so. if that works well i might just re-configure my delta, as it's undergoing a new arm and bltouch sensor probe upgrade, and i have to tweak the z-probe sensor config. that is the only reason why at this point i would have preferred to have loaded reprap fw; it's just editing an sd card config file and reboot, no reloading and compiling a whole new fw just for a few settings.

as for octoprint, i use this and I love it; ogt it running on an old laptop instead of an rpi 2, only because i wanted my rpi to be the webcam instead, and hosting the octoprint server, the streaming cam, and running a xwindows desktop was too much for it. But i am using it with repetier on my original delta connected via the MCU becuase i broke the uart usb port, works like a charm. i don't waste my time with SD. it is truly slow, even on the duet. a good octoprint and reliable serial or usb connection,and you won't have any issues. mine has been running reliably for almost 2 years.

@ EljefedsecurIT
Thanks for your fast Reply :-) I ve been parked my Mendel-Alligator Project for a Long time because of Time shortage. Now i started a Week ago, reading all that Stuff from 3d Artists , Repetier and so on. Quickly i figured out, that many Things have changed !
The Problem with the Raspi i worked around with buying an Raspi 2B with Repetier Server running, with him i get a stable connection to the Printer. The Raspi is connected with Ethernet to an old Laptop running Windows 7 64.
I did this Setup, because of loading Firmware from the Repetier Server to the Alligator Board, but this is not working. After reading many Forums and the Github Stuff from Repetier and 3d Artists i am really confused and dont know whats right ...

This is what i did now :
-Arduino 1.6.7 Zip on the Laptop
-Github 3dArtists Alligator Files installed to Aduino as showed on Github
-Repetier Firmware 0.92.8 flashing on the Alligator via USB/UART from Laptop
-on the Laptop Runs Repetier Host and Repetier Server, with stable Connection to the Alligator via USB/UART

Flashing the Alligator via USB/Uart from the Laptop with Arduino works fine, i configure on Repetier Firmware Online Tool my Config.h with all Axis same values and Watchdog enabled and Flash it to the Alligator. After flashing i start the Printer, all is fine, then trying to move Axis, but only X Axis is moving, all other Axis dont move. I dont Know why...

Do you have an Idea ?


Greetings from Germany

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Prusa MK3s
Anycubic Photon Mono 4k

Isel Portalfräse, gesteuert mit TripleBeast und Eding CNC

ok the good thing is that you can communicate with the alligator board. if you can pull up the serial port, and get OK messages, then you are in great shape. you should be able to bounce between the laptop and the raspi. the 40 pin connector is tied to the raspi-config settings, i'll be rebuilding my delta this afternoon so i'm updating my toolchain, i'll post if i find anything along the way.

first thing, always always always check the wiring for your motors, and make sure they are properly matched and firmly wired into the alligator board.

next, make sure that the endstop switches are all set to the right settings mechanically and in the firmware. I use NC to sensor (NO-normally open;NC - normally closed), and make sure those are wired properly with GND to common and NC to sensor.

next, when powered on, the sensors will light up little green LED lights on the board itself, next to each sensor input. it depends also on the endstops, either mechanical, optic, and/or how they are wired - i don't know without picutres. if you have set them to NC, they should all be off. if any of them are on, or you have 2 lit right next to each other, and if only one of 3 motors working, but they are firmly held in place, it may be then either there is a short, or your switch configurations in your configuration.h are reversed for the min/max endstops. you may have to experiment with those settings a little bit to find out what works for your switch configuration.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2016 06:24PM by EljefedsecurIT.

Hello EljefedsecuIT,

many Thanks for your Reply,i am since Friday on my Journey at Home with my Alligator and my Mendel. Since Friday i ve tryed most Firmwares they fit the Alligator. Witch Firmware do you actualy use ? With Repetierhost and Server i can connect via Ethernet and USB, but i am very confused about the Arduino IDE, because of copying Files to the IDE that make the flashing work. I tryed the 0.92 Repetier Firmware, but stuck on the Configuration of the Config.h in Arduino. Now i dont know whats right :-) ...

I now check and dobble Check my Wirings and every Soldering. When i am finished i let you know and send Pictures.

I would like to use REPAP Firmware, because i dont need to Flash everytime the Firmware, when something changes. :-)

I am very close to throw my Alligator outside my Window, and connect my old RAMPS 1.4 to my Mendel

Greetings from Germany

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2016 09:04AM by JET-A1.

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Prusa MK3s
Anycubic Photon Mono 4k

Isel Portalfräse, gesteuert mit TripleBeast und Eding CNC

Hello,

ive now diconnect all Cable from the Alligator for Checking Wires and Soldeing. I did found some cold Soldering at the REPRAP Electronic Endstops, i soldered all Endstops new and tested them, they are all fine now. Also the Motors ive tested with an Resistormeter (1.5 Ohms each Pair and no shortage between all Cables), they are fine, too.

At last i flashed the REPRAP Firmware dc42/1.09h from Marco, that Version is not stable running, i ve had much Network disconnects. I ask DC42 on Github for an actual Port for the Alligator, but he dont own one of them, so he cant do it. I ve not the Experience to do that. I like that Firmware really much, because it is simple to Configure and dont need to be flashed everytime somthing changes and it has all you need.

Today i want to Flash the Repetier 0.92 Firmware on the Alligator. When you read the Readme in the Repetier Folder, they say you need to copy some Files to the Arduino IDE 1.6.11. On the other Hand, 3D Artists has on Github Aruino/Alligator Variant Files and a Readme that says completely different for the Arduino IDE 1.6.6... So what is right, espacially when i want to use Watchdog ? Can i Flash the Alligator with Windows 10 64 using the Alligator USB UART PORT? I will try and Report...

My flashing Procedure:

Erasing the Flash Memory

- Nothing, but 12Volt is connected to the Alligator
- Power up the Alligator with 12V
- Erase Switch set toward Motor Driver Connectors
- Press the Erase Button more than a secound
- Erase Switch in middle Position
- Press the Erase Button more than a secound
- Flash Erase finished
- Power off the Alligator

Flashing new Firmware with Arduino IDE

- Power up Alligator with 12Volt
- Connect USB Cable to Laptop and ALLIGATOR USB/UART PORT
- Open Repetier.ino File ( Arduino IDE is Setup like sayed in 3d Artists/Github Arduino Variant ( I use Arduino IDE 1.6.6 Zip File on Windows 10 64))
- Click Configuration.h Tab make your changes witch fit for your 3D Printer
- in Tab Tools, Boards change the Board to Alligator 3D Printer board (UART/US ... If you use the Native/USB Port, choose that Board
- in Tab Tools PORT, change the COM Port witch fits your USB Connection (You can see the connected COM PORT, when you open Printer and Devices under Windows. Alligator is shown as HS232)
- Click Verify Sketch (Top Left Corner)
- If no Error Messages come up, Click Uplaod Sketch (Right beside the Verify Sketch Button).
- After all is done, there should be an Susessful Message come in the Arduino Compiler Window.


My Raspi2B is right and set up correctly now. The big difference between Raspi2B and Raspi3B is, that the Raspi3 uses WLAN and Bluetooth. This is blocking the UART Comunication and i didnt find a Way to work around, so i just bought a Raspi2B witch has no WLAN and Bluetooth, and it is working with Raspibian Jessie in a good Way. I will see how all i working after flashing the Alliagtor. and Report.

Ive put some Pictures here to show my Mendel.

Greetings from Germany

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Prusa MK3s
Anycubic Photon Mono 4k

Isel Portalfräse, gesteuert mit TripleBeast und Eding CNC