latest electronics

About four years ago I build my first 3D printer. A prusa i3, 6mm lasercut plywood frame. I was so smitten by the lasercutter that I bought one myself and the 3D printer was only used to make parts to improve on the lasercutter.
Anyway, my interest in 3D printing was renewed recently, so I started reading about it again. On several posts I found quotes like 'print quality can't be good because the printer is controlled by Arduino'. So I started searching for what is the best controller today, but so far all I found are Arduino based controllers.
Am I missing something? Should my next 3D printer be controlled by a BeagleBone or Pi? Or some other ARM equipped board?

Tnx,

A

If it is a Cartesian bot then an Arduino is fast enough unless you start adding full graphics displays. For deltas and other non-linear kinematics you want an ARM.

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I'm still in doubt. An Ultimaker clone or a delta. I like the delta's if only because they look cool, but from what I gather on the forums cartesians are better for detail. My Prusa is both slow and not very good in details, so either one would be an improvement ;-)
Can you point me in the direction of reading material on ARM controllers? All I could find was stuff about Pi's connected to Arduino/RAMPS, so the Pi is not actually controlling the printer. Must have missed a boat or two in the last couple of years... And so many interesting boards have appeared lately (CHIP, Pi Zero just to name a few).

Tnx,

A

Look for Duet, Smoothie, RADDS.

Enough to read about tomorrow.

Thanks,

A

Interesting. Is there much difference between the above mentioned 'all in one' boards and an Arduino Due with a Ramps-FD shield? I ask this because I already have one or two Dues and a lot of stepper drivers lying around so if performance is similar I prefer to start with that setup. I can always upgrade later.

The RAMPS-FD version 1 has a number of design issues. There are supposedly fixed in version 2 but AFAIK that has never been produced. However, there is another shield available called RADDS, which I hear works well.

The all-in-one boards mentioned above (Duet and Smoothieboard) have Ethernet ports and support a web interface. In the case of the Duet, it is a very good one with fast file upload to the SD card, so almost all Duet users control their printers using the web interface from a PC and/or table and/or smartphone.

---

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].

... actually I have 6 or 7 machines running with a RADDS and 2x to 4x RAPS128 microstepping drivers for different NEMA17 or NEMA23 steppers ... but only one of them is a 3D-printer (delta), the others were paste-dispensers, laser-engravers and such ...

---

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

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

I can find a ramps-fd version 1.2, no version 2.
I'm not in any hurry, so time enough to decide.

Tnx,

A

Quote
arjena
I can find a ramps-fd version 1.2, no version 2.
I'm not in any hurry, so time enough to decide.

Tnx,

A

Some more factors that may help you decide:

- RADDS has no web interface and has plug-in drivers. I normally consider plug-in drivers a disadvantage, because it is impossible to cool them well enough on such a small PCB and they are generally less reliable than on-board drivers. However, the RADDS supports the RAPS128 with 1/128 microstepping, which makes them very quiet. The driver chips on the RAPS128 driver boards have a thermal pad on top of the chip, so heatsinks on the top of the chip actually work (unlike on regular drivers). The downside is that you still have to adjust the motor currents by twiddling potentiometers. Arduino Due/RADDS runs RepRapFirmware and Repetier (not sure about Marlin). Both support the PanelDue colour touch screen. RADDS has no Ethernet port. However. if you are competent with electronics then it is possible to add a ESP8266 board to support WiFi and the DuetWebControl web interface (see the thread in the Developers forum). It isn't fully functional yet, and the file upload speed over the web interface will probably always be slow.

- Duet supports DuetWebControl with fast file upload (200 to 400kbytes/sec). It has on-board A4982 drivers, fixed at 1/16 microstepping, with software-adjustable stepper motor current. The only LCD panel it currently supports is the very nice PanelDue colour touch-screen panel. The best Duet is the 0.8.5 from Think3DPrint3D, which supports dual extrusion. Cheaper options are the RepRapPro 0.6 Duet and the Replikeo 0.6 Duet, which don't. There is an add-on board (DueX4) which adds support for another 4 extruders and heaters to a Duet 0.8.5 or Duet 0.6. The Duet only runs RepRapFirmware - although I don't see why you would want to run anything else, unless you have unusual hardware that it doesn't support.

- Smoothieboard has up to five A4982 drivers on board, with software adjustable motor currents. It only runs Smoothieware. There are some cheaper Smoothieboard-derived boards available, but none is open source.

IMO, RepRapFirmware is the best firmware for running a delta printer, but for a Cartesian or CoreXY there isn't much to choose between the various firmwares.

Full disclosure: I designed and manufacture and sell the PanelDue controller board, and I maintain a fork of RepRapFirmware.

---

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].

Please advise, I have made my choices already (see below). But there is so much information, with conflicting and overlapping statements.
I wanted to move straight to 32bit, but to reduce costs I sought compatibility with the cheapest available components (cheap as in source not in reliability or function).

I am an absolute newbie. I purchased a cheap Prusa i3 kit from China that came with defective printed parts. While waiting for replacements from a RepRap member I began reading the background to 3D. I wanted to upgrade the electronics and hardware, to overcome the severe limitations, of the kit design. I started with 10mm horizontal steels, for increased rigidity, in anticipation to working with a broad range of options with heavier components. .

I want to branch out to 3-colour or 3-polymer printing and to increase the model size soon enough.

So far I have purchased in excess of the kit parts:
Diamond 3 into 1 nozzle head, complete.
Arduino DUE 2012 R3
RAMPS-FD 1.4 - What are the design flaws and bugs I only now am beginning to hear about? What of the version 1.4? What can I do to remove these problems, if anything? Can I now choose another controller board instead?
(Optional Cooling fan for the controller board and stepper drivers? With 3 Extruder driver outputs E0-E2)
Stepstick Drv8825 (1/128)

Neema 17 Bowden Bulldog extruders (Remotely located via Bowden tubes to the Diamond head)
Nema 17 mounting brackets
Neema 17 vibration dampers (silicone)
Neema 17 heatsinks
Variable speed cooling fan for the Diamond head and its heater cartridge
Variable speed cooling fan for the extruded polymer

Next on my list is an LCD touch screen to suit this setup but I cannot find any pointers to this kit?
A web interface or a network connection for file transfer and remote control of the unit would be extremely useful?
Power supply 12 or 24v?
Firmware?
Software?

Orientation - with respect to the final choices, what are the available settings and their effects? What are the various materials now possible with the range of these settings?

Could the solution outlined for the production of 3-4 simultaneous duplicate prints be applied to a Diamond head also?

I look forward to any advice you can give me at this time. With many thanks.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2016 08:54AM by arclite.

Quote
arclite
Please advise, I have made my choices already (see below). But there is so much information, with conflicting and overlapping statements.
I wanted to move straight to 32bit, but to reduce costs I sought compatibility with the cheapest available components (cheap as in source not in reliability or function).

I am an absolute newbie. I purchased a cheap Prusa i3 kit from China that came with defective printed parts. While waiting for replacements from a RepRap member I began reading the background to 3D. I wanted to upgrade the electronics and hardware, to overcome the severe limitations, of the kit design. I started with 10mm horizontal steels, for increased rigidity, in anticipation to working with a broad range of options with heavier components. .

I want to branch out to 3-colour or 3-polymer printing and to increase the model size soon enough.

So far I have purchased in excess of the kit parts:
Diamond 3 into 1 nozzle head, complete.
Arduino DUE 2012 R3
RAMPS-FD 1.4 - What are the design flaws and bugs I only now am beginning to hear about? What of the version 1.4? What can I do to remove these problems, if anything? Can I now choose another controller board instead?
(Optional Cooling fan for the controller board and stepper drivers? With 3 Extruder driver outputs E0-E2)
Stepstick Drv8825 (1/128)

Neema 17 Bowden Bulldog extruders (Remotely located via Bowden tubes to the Diamond head)
Nema 17 mounting brackets
Neema 17 vibration dampers (silicone)
Neema 17 heatsinks
Variable speed cooling fan for the Diamond head and its heater cartridge
Variable speed cooling fan for the extruded polymer

Next on my list is an LCD touch screen to suit this setup but I cannot find any pointers to this kit?
A web interface or a network connection for file transfer and remote control of the unit would be extremely useful?
Power supply 12 or 24v?
Firmware?
Software?

Orientation - with respect to the final choices, what are the available settings and their effects? What are the various materials now possible with the range of these settings?

Could the solution outlined for the production of 3-4 simultaneous duplicate prints be applied to a Diamond head also?

I look forward to any advice you can give me at this time. With many thanks.

Where did you get the Ramps-FD 1.4 (Link please) never heard of that one and think you may have confused yourself and have a Ramps 1.4 in which case it wont fir the DUE at all also the DRV 8825 boards are only 1/32 micro stepping not 1/128.

If you have a search for the RAMPS-FD you will find plenty of post's re the issues with it so much so that when Geetech copied it whilst it was in Beta they left all the issues in the design and BOBC the designer of it eventually gave up (The clone boards can lead to some danger of Fire starting if the chip initialises in the wrong way it can start all the heaters going without being commanded to) but you will have to find the posts and read up on it.

The only real option for a due is the RADDS Board as already stated and I believe that going that route will cost more than a DUET Controller will (And maybe as much as a genuine Smoothy as well).

Quote
arclite
Next on my list is an LCD touch screen to suit this setup but I cannot find any pointers to this kit?
A web interface or a network connection for file transfer and remote control of the unit would be extremely useful?
Power supply 12 or 24v?
Firmware?
Software?

Orientation - with respect to the final choices, what are the available settings and their effects? What are the various materials now possible with the range of these settings?

Could the solution outlined for the production of 3-4 simultaneous duplicate prints be applied to a Diamond head also?

I look forward to any advice you can give me at this time. With many thanks.

The simplest way of getting a good web interface and touch screen support is to buy Duet electronics. The Arduino Due based solutions don't support Ethernet. I sell a.colour touch screen controller board called PanelDue, which works with Duet and RADDS electronics. See [www.escher3d.com] for details.

---

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].

Yes, I hope not! The link to the product is:

[www.aliexpress.com]

For which I have purchased an Arduino Due here:

[www.aliexpress.com]

and for which I am using 1/128 stepper drivers here:

[www.aliexpress.com]

I decided to go for optoelectronic end-stops here:

[www.aliexpress.com]

Hoping my late night enthusiasm hasn't got the better of me?!

With thanks

Quote
arclite
Yes, I hope not! The link to the product is:

[www.aliexpress.com]

That is a RAMPS-FD V1.0 A the one with the problems I have one sat in a box that I refuse to use due to these issues

Quote
arclite
For which I have purchased an Arduino Due here:

[www.aliexpress.com]

and for which I am using 1/128 stepper drivers here:

[www.aliexpress.com]

They are indeed DRV8825 stepper drivers but if you re-read the description they are 1/32 micro stepping NOT 1/128

Quote
arclite
I decided to go for optoelectronic end-stops here:

[www.aliexpress.com]

Hoping my late night enthusiasm hasn't got the better of me?!

With thanks

But if you read the product description it is:
"Brand 3D Printer Motherboard Reprap RAMPS-FD Shield Ramps 1.4 Control Board Compatible with Arduino Due Main Control Board"
Everything I was reading about using the Arduino DUE as a 32 bit processor and the 3.3V logic required to work with it led me to the RAMPS-FD.

I checked the credentials in a variety of locations including their website wiki: [www.geeetech.com]

I too have noted the picture showing an earlier version of the circuit board as V1.0 Revision A. But this is a frequent issue of the wrong photograph being supplied to a website. Forums have discussed up to version 1.2 and the availability of version 1.4 within 2 years promised to arrive at a stable position for me to begin building. If not I will ask for a full refund as the product clearly does not match its technical description and is unsafe to be used as you have discussed!

Finding a RAMPS-FD for sale at an affordable price was a pleasant conclusion. From here I went in search of the appropriate drivers and from the POLULU site I found the drivers mentioned but made an early hours mistake based on trying to avoid the high cost of the AMIS-30543 Micro-Stepping Motor Driver shown here: [www.pololu.com]

I note that an SPI master facility is required to initialise this driver at power up. Hence the use of the DUE and RAMPS-FD, both with SPI ports to initialise a high resolution and quiet 3D printer. Gosh I hope so because if not by following descriptions derived from translations to English on far away trade websites has resulted in a costly waste of money, ie. not any appreciable improvement of any feature over and above the other costly processing boards.

Incidentally here is the REPRAP Readme from the Geetech wiki site in respect of the RAMPS-FD
"This firmware is intended to be a fully object-oriented highly modular control p
rogram for RepRap self-replicating 3D printers.

It owes a lot to Marlin and to the original RepRap FiveD_GCode.

General design principles:

* Control by RepRap G Codes. These are taken to be machine independent,
though some may be unsupported.
* Full use of C++ OO techniques,
* Make classes hide their data,
* Make everything as stateless as possible,
* No use of conditional compilation except for #include guards - if you
need that, you should be forking the repository to make a new
branch - let the repository take the strain,
* Concentration of all machine-dependent defintions and code in Platform.h
and Platform.cpp,
* No specials for (X,Y) or (Z) - all movement is 3-dimensional,
* Try to be efficient in memory use, but this is not critical,
* Labour hard to be efficient in time use, and this is critical,
* Don't abhor floats - they work fast enough if you're clever,
* Don't avoid arrays and structs/classes,
* Don't avoid pointers,
* Use operator and function overloading where appropriate, particulary for
vector algebra.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This version is for the Arduino Due with an Ethernet shield with an SD card and
the RepRapPro Ltd Arduino DUE to Sanguinololu Adaptor.

(See [github.com])

Test compiling was with Arduino 1.5.2.

Upload it to your Due, put the ether shield on it, plug in a
network cable, and copy the files in the SD-image folder onto the SD.

The IP address for your browser is 192.168.1.14.

You can change that in Platform.h if you need to:

#define IP0 192
#define IP1 168
#define IP2 1
#define IP3 14

The password when the web browser asks for it is "reprap" with no quotes.

The password is intended to stop fidgety friends or colleagues from playing
with your RepRap. It is not intended to stop international cyberterrorists
working in a hollowed-out volcano from controlling your RepRap from the next
continent. For example, it is transmitted unencrypted...

If you open the Arduino serial monitor (115200 baud) you should see a
log of incoming HTTP requests and a record of any G Codes it thinks it
has to act upon.

Actually acting upon them will be added shortly :-)

-------------

Version 0.2 pre-alpha

Started: 18 November 2012
This date: 1 March 2013

Adrian Bowyer
RepRap Professional Ltd
[reprappro.com]

Licence:"

That's all I know for now. Thank you for your observations and comments. I welcome your assistance because I am struggling to follow the development of "Open Source" and an affordable path that currently appears to stray into areas of misdirection and poor descriptions!

I will continue to write up my experiences as events progress.

LOL you believe china product descriptions, you fool!!!

They put every buzzword they can think of into the description to try and lure you to buy their stuff.

"Brand 3D Printer Motherboard Reprap RAMPS-FD Shield Ramps 1.4 Control Board Compatible with Arduino Due Main Control Board"

In this example "Ramps 1.4" has nothing to do with anything, that’s the standard mega shield

There is no 1.4 version of the ramps-fd board (there is a v2)

see [forums.reprap.org] for lots of details.

Yes it will work... just don’t ever unplug the USB cables or the hotend and heated bed will be on full bore. (so im told)
Ie make the modifications, asap.

Quote
arclite
But if you read the product description it is:
"Brand 3D Printer Motherboard Reprap RAMPS-FD Shield Ramps 1.4 Control Board Compatible with Arduino Due Main Control Board"
Everything I was reading about using the Arduino DUE as a 32 bit processor and the 3.3V logic required to work with it led me to the RAMPS-FD.

I checked the credentials in a variety of locations including their website wiki: [www.geeetech.com]

I too have noted the picture showing an earlier version of the circuit board as V1.0 Revision A. But this is a frequent issue of the wrong photograph being supplied to a website. Forums have discussed up to version 1.2 and the availability of version 1.4 within 2 years promised to arrive at a stable position for me to begin building. If not I will ask for a full refund as the product clearly does not match its technical description and is unsafe to be used as you have discussed!

Finding a RAMPS-FD for sale at an affordable price was a pleasant conclusion. From here I went in search of the appropriate drivers and from the POLULU site I found the drivers mentioned but made an early hours mistake based on trying to avoid the high cost of the AMIS-30543 Micro-Stepping Motor Driver shown here: [www.pololu.com]

I note that an SPI master facility is required to initialise this driver at power up. Hence the use of the DUE and RAMPS-FD, both with SPI ports to initialise a high resolution and quiet 3D printer. Gosh I hope so because if not by following descriptions derived from translations to English on far away trade websites has resulted in a costly waste of money, ie. not any appreciable improvement of any feature over and above the other costly processing boards.

Incidentally here is the REPRAP Readme from the Geetech wiki site in respect of the RAMPS-FD
"This firmware is intended to be a fully object-oriented highly modular control p
rogram for RepRap self-replicating 3D printers.

It owes a lot to Marlin and to the original RepRap FiveD_GCode.

General design principles:

* Control by RepRap G Codes. These are taken to be machine independent,
though some may be unsupported.
* Full use of C++ OO techniques,
* Make classes hide their data,
* Make everything as stateless as possible,
* No use of conditional compilation except for #include guards - if you
need that, you should be forking the repository to make a new
branch - let the repository take the strain,
* Concentration of all machine-dependent defintions and code in Platform.h
and Platform.cpp,
* No specials for (X,Y) or (Z) - all movement is 3-dimensional,
* Try to be efficient in memory use, but this is not critical,
* Labour hard to be efficient in time use, and this is critical,
* Don't abhor floats - they work fast enough if you're clever,
* Don't avoid arrays and structs/classes,
* Don't avoid pointers,
* Use operator and function overloading where appropriate, particulary for
vector algebra.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This version is for the Arduino Due with an Ethernet shield with an SD card and
the RepRapPro Ltd Arduino DUE to Sanguinololu Adaptor.

(See [github.com])

Test compiling was with Arduino 1.5.2.

Upload it to your Due, put the ether shield on it, plug in a
network cable, and copy the files in the SD-image folder onto the SD.

The IP address for your browser is 192.168.1.14.

You can change that in Platform.h if you need to:

#define IP0 192
#define IP1 168
#define IP2 1
#define IP3 14

The password when the web browser asks for it is "reprap" with no quotes.

The password is intended to stop fidgety friends or colleagues from playing
with your RepRap. It is not intended to stop international cyberterrorists
working in a hollowed-out volcano from controlling your RepRap from the next
continent. For example, it is transmitted unencrypted...

If you open the Arduino serial monitor (115200 baud) you should see a
log of incoming HTTP requests and a record of any G Codes it thinks it
has to act upon.

Actually acting upon them will be added shortly :-)

-------------

Version 0.2 pre-alpha

Started: 18 November 2012
This date: 1 March 2013

Adrian Bowyer
RepRap Professional Ltd
[reprappro.com]

Licence:"

That's all I know for now. Thank you for your observations and comments. I welcome your assistance because I am struggling to follow the development of "Open Source" and an affordable path that currently appears to stray into areas of misdirection and poor descriptions!

I will continue to write up my experiences as events progress.

OK I will re-iterate this once more only THERE HAS NEVER BEEN NOR NEVER WILL BE A RAMPS-FD V1.4 that description (although body worded) means That the RAMPS-FD they are selling is a Compatable card to the RAMPS V1.4 but for a due Controller which is 32 bit and is 3.3V however the board is a clone of a beta version of the RAMPS-FD as designed by BOBC and he admits it had error's which he fixed in V2 (Which due to GEETECH Jumping the gun and making this board) never got released as far as I know and BOBC gave up on the project some time ago.

In my view you have 2 option's
1. if you wish to use the DUE then get a RADDS Shield.
2. If you want 32 bit but not the RADDS (It isn't the cheapest option) then get either a DUET Or a Smoothie Clone.

But either way I would recommend that the RAMS-FD goes straight in the BIN unless you are willing to do a lot of reading and re-work the board to be safe (Not sure how you would do that mind)

Signing out

Doug

Good to see other people learn from my initial question too.
In the meantime I've decided to go for the Duet. But I'll check back once I really start building.

Thanks for all the info,

A

Thank you for all the HEATED words on this subject. I did not take the descriptions seriously to be accurate in English BUT i did not expect them to LIE OUTRIGHT on SERIOUS issues that exposed REAL DANGER!

I would appreciate everybody who has made their observations of REAL DANGER to print the relevant page of the GEETECH "Brand 3D Printer Motherboard Reprap RAMPS-FD Shield Ramps 1.4 Control Board Compatible with Arduino Due Main Control Board" advertised on the website here: "http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/7250883649.html?orderId=72293325549585" so that you have a copy of the offending page and if I take this company to court for selling dangerous kit or fraudulent kit (taking into account the non-existence of RAMPS 1.4 or RAMPS-FD 1.4) I would rely upon your statements that would be argued against if yo each did not have proof of the offending evidence of the relevant page(s).

Please confirm your willingness to take this step for my own support as well as any body else with an ability to "JUMP THE GUN" after reading the RAMPS-FD was appropriate for the DUE but who didn't see the warnings before buying this heap of rubbish! As the developer has done no further work in disgust of GEETECH jumping the gun and producing a flawed product, I too would feel the same way and would not want my name to be associated with this mess? I will look at the mods if I can find them. They were not visible even as I searched for a 32bit controller for my 3D printer to prepare to improve the performance and scope of the FAULTY 3D PRINTER KIT delivered from CHINA. CHINA is apparently developing a bad name since nobody trading products from this country are interested in filtering out the rubbish. BEWARE! As CHINESE MARKETS PLUNGE in the news recently, the cause being widespread failure of products sourced from this country could not possibly have anything to do with such a trend. So then why do I feel I am being attacked by the comments, such as "SIGNING OUT" = fed up with writing to you about this matter?, from this board's members? It is unexpected! I have been exposed to danger because the existence of evidence of the REAL problems with the original RAMPS-FD and the non-existence of the continuity of the RAMPS-FD design was not visible from all accessible pages still extolling the virtues of the same design!

It would be more appropriate members with such knowledge attempted to work out a solution to this problem. I would think such action is still a priority? I will start the action if you will support me in doing so?

So what do you think?

I would have the web administrators of the RAMPS-FD pages overwrite these pages with a warning message and a link to the explanation of the problems with the original version of this design. Also despite the existence of a version 2.0 the non existence of any further development of this design would be appropriate to advise any body else about the limited success of this design.

It would save heated words being typed by JADED memberships.

With thanks

Another more recent appearance on the same website is: "High Sensitivity!Geeetech New Pololu Shield RAMPS-FD for Arduino Due 3D Printer RepRap controller board"
available at this location: "http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Geeetech-New-Pololu-Shield-RAMPS-FD-for-Arduino-Due-3D-Printer-RepRap-controller-board/1714317852.html"
Except the photograph revealing the circuit board version has been replaced with another photograph, a different photograph, showing the same version number 1.0 revision A in the 3rd photograph from the top

This is apparently a 2nd company selling the same faulty product from GEETECH, many GEETECH products are being sold through this outlet.

With thanks.

Quote
arclite
Thank you for all the HEATED words on this subject. I did not take the descriptions seriously to be accurate in English BUT i did not expect them to LIE OUTRIGHT on SERIOUS issues that exposed REAL DANGER!

I would appreciate everybody who has made their observations of REAL DANGER to print the relevant page of the GEETECH "Brand 3D Printer Motherboard Reprap RAMPS-FD Shield Ramps 1.4 Control Board Compatible with Arduino Due Main Control Board" advertised on the website here: "http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/7250883649.html?orderId=72293325549585" so that you have a copy of the offending page and if I take this company to court for selling dangerous kit or fraudulent kit (taking into account the non-existence of RAMPS 1.4 or RAMPS-FD 1.4) I would rely upon your statements that would be argued against if yo each did not have proof of the offending evidence of the relevant page(s).

Please confirm your willingness to take this step for my own support as well as any body else with an ability to "JUMP THE GUN" after reading the RAMPS-FD was appropriate for the DUE but who didn't see the warnings before buying this heap of rubbish! As the developer has done no further work in disgust of GEETECH jumping the gun and producing a flawed product, I too would feel the same way and would not want my name to be associated with this mess? I will look at the mods if I can find them. They were not visible even as I searched for a 32bit controller for my 3D printer to prepare to improve the performance and scope of the FAULTY 3D PRINTER KIT delivered from CHINA. CHINA is apparently developing a bad name since nobody trading products from this country are interested in filtering out the rubbish. BEWARE! As CHINESE MARKETS PLUNGE in the news recently, the cause being widespread failure of products sourced from this country could not possibly have anything to do with such a trend. So then why do I feel I am being attacked by the comments, such as "SIGNING OUT" = fed up with writing to you about this matter?, from this board's members? It is unexpected! I have been exposed to danger because the existence of evidence of the REAL problems with the original RAMPS-FD and the non-existence of the continuity of the RAMPS-FD design was not visible from all accessible pages still extolling the virtues of the same design!

It would be more appropriate members with such knowledge attempted to work out a solution to this problem. I would think such action is still a priority? I will start the action if you will support me in doing so?

So what do you think?

From the US much?
Must be since your fierst thought is suing someone.

Spend the time on making an instructables for future 3D printer builders to help avoid the chineese pitfalls.

I'm very often asked what the difference is between E3D J-Head and an E3D without the J-head part. First one is better at getting clicks on Aliexpress and both are fakes if you buy from that source.

Buying from China with eyes wide shut Is done at your own risk. It should come as no surprise and would fall into the "common sense" paragraph of my country.

---

My Instructables - both total newbie instructables and some for intermediate users.
My Designs on Thingiverse
YouTube channel containing a few 3D printing videos - they are videos for my Instructables, and mostly not standalone.
Ultius / Tantillus Thingiverse Group

Quote
dc42
The RAMPS-FD version 1 has a number of design issues. There are supposedly fixed in version 2 but AFAIK that has never been produced. However, there is another shield available called RADDS, which I hear works well.

The all-in-one boards mentioned above (Duet and Smoothieboard) have Ethernet ports and support a web interface. In the case of the Duet, it is a very good one with fast file upload to the SD card, so almost all Duet users control their printers using the web interface from a PC and/or table and/or smartphone.

Full disclosure. The fast file upload is not fast at all. Get no more than 150k/s, and frequently it starts at 150 and slows down sometimes all the way to 45k. This is with the latest firmware and web control software as of this date. Also the web interface errors out so frequently with ajax errors that I have completely given up on it and this is my third attempt at actually trying to use it. So all the hype about ethernet and web interface so far, for me, is just that. I need a cable to connect to the ethernet port. I might as well use usb. At least its reliable for me.

Quote
thetazzbot

Quote
dc42
The RAMPS-FD version 1 has a number of design issues. There are supposedly fixed in version 2 but AFAIK that has never been produced. However, there is another shield available called RADDS, which I hear works well.

The all-in-one boards mentioned above (Duet and Smoothieboard) have Ethernet ports and support a web interface. In the case of the Duet, it is a very good one with fast file upload to the SD card, so almost all Duet users control their printers using the web interface from a PC and/or table and/or smartphone.

Full disclosure. The fast file upload is not fast at all. Get no more than 150k/s, and frequently it starts at 150 and slows down sometimes all the way to 45k. This is with the latest firmware and web control software as of this date. Also the web interface errors out so frequently with ajax errors that I have completely given up on it and this is my third attempt at actually trying to use it. So all the hype about ethernet and web interface so far, for me, is just that. I need a cable to connect to the ethernet port. I might as well use usb. At least its reliable for me.

Maybe that's your experience, but most Duet users find the web interface fast and reliable. Some report upload speeds as high as 400kb/sec. It depends very much on the SD card, and unfortunately it isn't directly related to the speed grade of the SD card. I agree that 150kb/sec isn't blindingly fast, but it's better than most other printer firmwares can manage, e.g. I have heard 30kb/sec quoted for other firmware. At 150kb/sec you can upload a 8Mb gcode file in less than a minute.

If you are having network issues, maybe there is a problem with your network hardware, or the cable you are using, or possibly your Duet. If you post a Wireshark trace showing the traffic prior to a disconnect, chrishamm or myself may be able to work out what is going wrong.

Using a USB cable creates a ground loop, which means that mains ground transients can cause your printer to stop if you are not careful with the mains supplies to the printer and attached PC. Plugging in an Ethernet cable does not create a ground loop.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2016 01:14PM by dc42.

---

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 use the 5v in header to connect to the powersupply.
I have literally had zero problems using usb. I also have not tried to print 20 hour prints either.

Anyway 150 to 400kbits per sec is not fast. Its mediocre at best. I have a high speed sd card but yes I can see how that would be an issue. The primary factor is the buffer size in both the firmware and the javascript xmlwebrequest. Perhaps something is not optimal there.

[en.m.wikipedia.org]

Even the default slowest speed of 12 megabytes per second is tons faster.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2016 01:40PM by thetazzbot.

Quote
thetazzbot
Anyway 150 to 400kbits per sec is not fast. Its mediocre at best. I have a high speed sd card but yes I can see how that would be an issue. The primary factor is the buffer size in both the firmware and the javascript xmlwebrequest. Perhaps something is not optimal there.

The bottleneck is the SD card. When I was testing this, I found that if I threw away the data instead of writing it to the card, the upload rate was 3Mbytes/sec.

I think the problem is that SD cards are optimised for data writes of several megabytes in one continuous burst, because that is what they need to do in a camera. As the Duet has only 96K RAM it's just not possible to write data in large bursts. So the card gets a much shorter burst than it is optimised for, then it sees the end of the burst and may decide to do some wear levelling, which ties it up for a long time. I have some further work to do on this, for example to save RAM elsewhere in the firmware so that there is more buffer space for writing longer bursts to the card.

---

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].

Quote
thetazzbot
I use the 5v in header to connect to the powersupply.
I have literally had zero problems using usb. I also have not tried to print 20 hour prints either.

Anyway 150 to 400kbits per sec is not fast. Its mediocre at best. I have a high speed sd card but yes I can see how that would be an issue. The primary factor is the buffer size in both the firmware and the javascript xmlwebrequest. Perhaps something is not optimal there.

[en.m.wikipedia.org]

Even the default slowest speed of 12 megabytes per second is tons faster.

Have you tried using LAN or WIFI on 3D printers?

Asking as it seems you focus on the Ethernet infrastructure usage and limitations and not the combined usage when we talk 3D printing hardware and capabilities of SD Cards.

400kb in this scenario is really very good at its present.

Only realistic way you get higher speeds is if you transfer to an Raspberry Pi and do not save it to SD, but keep it in working memory.

---

My Instructables - both total newbie instructables and some for intermediate users.
My Designs on Thingiverse
YouTube channel containing a few 3D printing videos - they are videos for my Instructables, and mostly not standalone.
Ultius / Tantillus Thingiverse Group

Does this mean that there are no easy or possible hardware options to create RAM and buffer space equal to the technical needs of SD memory cards as they appear to be at present?

I think the printing process should be immediate and hassle free to facilitate creative thinking and solutions to a solid 3D world. Fixing the broken polymer shells of various domestic accidents. Fixing a crashed quadcopter perhaps. Some people are already thinking of tailored prosthetics for injured people. I am inspired but frustrated while I know nothing and hungry to learn from experience.

I have written a warning on the Ramps-FD Wiki page here : [reprap.org]

To all forum contributors: please note that anyone could have issued this warning, as the reprap wiki is open to anyone. You just have to inscribe yourself, as this is a different service than the reprap forum.

It is always better to refer to forum threads while writing such stuff on the wiki.

Remember one of the mantra of Wikipedia which may also apply to RepRap wiki: Be bold ! [en.wikipedia.org]