LaserCut Mendel by Tech Zone Remix

I can see that power needs to get from the mains adapter to the extruder board and stepper controllers. What I can't work out is how. I've got a little black socket that the power supply plugs into, but I don't see what I'm supposed to attach the socket to. I could attach the socket to the wooden board somehow, but even if I do that I've got to get power from the socket to 4 seperate boards, and it's not clear how to do that. Do all the boards get hooked together so that power flows from one board to the next one, or is there some mechanism by which the power that comes in gets split up and sent to each board seperately?

Yes, you need to wire all the ground terminals together, and all the 12v+ together.

I found a couple of old pictures where I just wired up the connections. Sorry about the glare and fingerprints.

Front: [localhostr.com]
Back: [localhostr.com]

I used fat single core wires, and since it was a bit difficult to jam three of them into one chocolate block I had to split them. So I hooked up one wire from the power supply to the + , and one to - . With thinner wires you can just latch them from one board to the next.

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-Nudel
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Aha! So evidently the missing piece of the puzzle is the chocolate block. I didn't get one of those in the kit, and none of the TechZone documentation that I can see mentions it. I just googled for "chocolate block connector" and it found a useful-looking wiki page about wiring Mendel electronics which I hadn't seen before

[reprap.org]

I'm still slightly confused (I know, I know, I'm slow)... In your pictures (thanks for those) I can see how you've connected everything together but I don't see where the power actually comes in (did you add wires going into the block after taking those pictures?), and the wiki pictures show the power coming in from the socket to the chocolate block but there are no shots of the other side of the block - is that just one pair of wires coming out of the middle two holes on the far side of the block, and nothing coming from the outside holes?

You don't need the "chocolate box" connector to wire the Gen 3 Remix. You can just run wires between the screw terminals of the MB, EC and SCs and the power supply connector. The tricky part is connecting the ground between the MB and EC. You'll need to solder a wire into the MB since there's no ground screw terminal in that board.

I connect the wires from the power supply into the chocolate block together with one of other wires alreday there, two wires in one terminal. They are not wired up in the pictures I posted, and I don't have a good picture showing that, sorry.

The chocolate block is not needed, but I find it useful if I move or transport my printer to be able to disconnect the wires coming from the psu.

And there is no need to solder the extra ground wire from the motherboard to the extruder controller. There are several free ground pins on both pcbs, and for me it works fine with just using a arduino/breadboard male-male wire between them.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

Quote
Nudel
And there is no need to solder the extra ground wire from the motherboard to the extruder controller. There are several free ground pins on both pcbs, and for me it works fine with just using a arduino/breadboard male-male wire between them.

I used to have a similar set-up with the Gen 3 Remix and I didn't find a ground pin in the motherboard that can be used to connect DIRECTLY to the extruder controller. I didn't see them in your picture either. The only ground path between the MB and EC in your wiring goes through the stepper controllers.

brnrd Wrote:
> I used to have a similar set-up with the Gen 3
> Remix and I didn't find a ground pin in the
> motherboard that can be used to connect DIRECTLY
> to the extruder controller. I didn't see them in
> your picture either. The only ground path between
> the MB and EC in your wiring goes through the
> stepper controllers.

Well, those picture were only to show the main 12v and ground wiring (and as a bonus the stepper controllers wiring), and they still lack all the other wires. I have a shot of everything but it's terribly messy and you can't really make out heads from tails in it.

Here's a picture of my set with (some of) the ground pins marked: [reprap.org] I connected a wire from the pin on the MB to the EC.

But I do seem to recall seeing some motherboards without those extra headers? And if they left those out, yes you would have to solder a header on. But then you might as well just solder the wire directly to the board. Then again, there are plenty of ground pins going to the steppers controllers, and if you really don't like soldering I guess you could split the ribbon cable and hijack one of those.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

I am cutting the laser cut parts my self, and need a list of the other pieces I need to buy. Is there anywhere I can find a definitive list of the parts that come in a TechZone kit.

I suspect you would do better to start a new thread rather than trying to revive one that's been dead for 2 years. I know this from personal experience at trying to revive dead threads ....

Techzone went out of business. Their laser cut Mendel is documented by several links on the following page: "http://reprap.org/wiki/TechZone_InfoHub" . Some of the links document lists of materials.

Techzone included a printed BOM (Bill Of Materials) with my Huxley kit. But, although I received all the parts listed, it was not enough to complete the assembly. -Phuzzy