What board to replace my arduino/ramps?

Hi guys

I would like to replace the main board on my kossel (today I have a arduino mega with ramps)
It seems that the best solutions theses days are duet or smoothie board.

I would like better performance, easy firmware and configuration
As budget is not the main concern, what would you recommend me and why?

Thanks for your help

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2015 06:44PM by nick0.

Both Duet and Smoothie will give you better performance, easy firmware and configuration. Both also give you digital control of stepper motor current, and a built-in SD card socket.

It's unlikely that you will get a completely unbiased answer to your question, because AFAIK nobody had tried both Duet and Smoothie, and people like to think the board they purchased is the best. I use Duet and have contributed to the firmware for it, in particular I implemented the delta support. So here are my reasons for using Duet rather than Smoothie:

- Better web interface, including reasonably fast (170kbyte/sec) HTTP upload to the SD card;
- Fast least-squares 3, 4, 6 or 7 factor auto delta calibration (you can auto calibrate at the start of every print, it takes less than 30 seconds);
- Segmentation-free delta movement;
- Lower cost (Replikeo sells the Duet at $59.99 + shipping).

The main reason I can see for using Smoothie instead of Duet is if you want dual extrusion. You can get a version of Smoothie that will drive 5 motors and 2 hot ends. With the Duet, you have to add a daughter board (Duet shield) or expansion board (DueX4) to drive additional extruders and hot ends.

One other difference is in the type of LCD panels they support. Most Duet users don't use a LCD panel, they use the web interface from a PC, tablet or smartphone. But you can get a colour touch screen control panel for it, called PanelDue (full disclosure: I designed this and I manufacture it). It's a very nice solution, but not cheap. I believe the Smoothie supports the same low-cost low res mono graphics LCDs with rotary encoder as Arduino/RAMPS.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2015 06:19AM 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].

My input for what it's worth is

I have a Smoothie as well as 2 Duet's

Not used the Smoothie in anger but have played with it on the bench in a standalone config. (It was purchased to drive a CNC Router that isn't quite finished yet)
one of the DUET's is on my large delta and the other is destined for a CoreXY Printer (Both have DC42's PanelDue touch screens on them)

Both are easy to configure the smoothie is easier to upgrade firmware but not by to much (You write the new FW File to the SD Card and reboot and the upgrade is then automatic) on the DUET you have to connect to the USB and use a flashing tool not to difficult!

the Duet at Replikeo's pricing makes it half the cost of an equivalent Smoothie!

The duet web interface is much nicer than the Smoothie's

the duet can take file uploads either by the Web interface or FTP wheras the Smoothie presents the SD Card as a USB Device (I Prefer the DUET way as I don't actually even need to be in the same room as the printer to control it (caveat emptor do this at your own risk I prefer to be in the room to start any prints etc so I can monitor what is happening but I can upload anything to it remotely then use the Panel to control it locally)

Hope this helps a little

Doug

thanks a lot for theses informations !

I think i will go for the duet with lcd touch screen!

thanks guys!

I'm also looking for mega2560+ramps1.4+LCD12864+Repetier firmware replacement for my Kossel Mini.

As I understand, it is impossible to connect RRD Full Graphics LCD to Duet board? Also, as I understand there is only one firmware for Duet board - RepRapFirmware. Even Repetier firmware isn't ported to Duet board?

My printer is a few meters away from the computer. I'm uploading files to SD card and printing files from SD card without computer, so display presence is very important for me.

Is RepRapFirmware web interface is usable from smartphone (Samsung Galaxy Note 3, for example)? Is it possible to change settings (config gcodes), control printer (change filament, pause/stop, change print speed or filament % multiplicator) and do other things using web ui?

As I understand, every time new firmware comes out I need to move printer closer to computer, connect usb cable and update firmware? Firmware update via SD/WebUI/smartphone isn't possible?

David, is your delta auto calibration works good with simple switches as on endstops of most printers? Is it possible to save calibration results and reuse this data on next print without recalibration? I have manually detachable probe: [www.thingiverse.com] Is it possible to do this via Web UI ?

Somebody already bought Duet boards from Replikeo?

UPD: Is it possible to connect something like ESP8266 to Duet board to use WiFi instead of etherned to control printer?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2015 07:37PM by roboprint.

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roboprint
As I understand, it is impossible to connect RRD Full Graphics LCD to Duet board?

Correct, the firmware doesn't support it. When I asked Duet users last year what sort of display they wanted, I started out intending to do a similar 12864-based display, but the overwhelming feedback I got from the forum was that users wanted colour touch screen instead and would pay more for it. The resolution of the touch screen is way higher, which means it can display more data.

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roboprint
Also, as I understand there is only one firmware for Duet board - RepRapFirmware. Even Repetier firmware isn't ported to Duet board?

Correct AFAIK. I'm wary of 8-bit firmwares ported to 32-bit boards, because they don't take advantage of the extra possibilities that faster processing power offers. Also, no other firmware offers a good web interface, you have to add e.g. Octoprint on a RPi to get that. So I can't see any reason to use any other firmware, unless you need to drive a specific peripheral that RepRapFirmware doesn't support.

Quote
roboprint
Is RepRapFirmware web interface is usable from smartphone (Samsung Galaxy Note 3, for example)? Is it possible to change settings (config gcodes), control printer (change filament, pause/stop, change print speed or filament % multiplicator) and do other things using web ui?

Yes, you can do everything using the web ui except update the firmware and get the debug output when you enable debug. One of my printers is also remote from any computers most of the time, and I use a Galaxy S3 to do the few things that I can't yet do from the display.

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roboprint
As I understand, every time new firmware comes out I need to move printer closer to computer, connect usb cable and update firmware? Firmware update via SD/WebUI/smartphone isn't possible?

Correct. I use a laptop to update the firmware. There is talk of adding a feature to update firmware from the SD card.

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roboprint
David, is your delta auto calibration works good with simple switches as on endstops of most printers?

Yes, I originally developed it using the microswitch Z probe that came with my Mini Kossel kit.

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roboprint
Is it possible to save calibration results and reuse this data on next print without recalibration?

The calibration results are preserved until you reboot the firmware. They are not yet saved to flash memory, but I may add this. You can save the endstop corrections and delta radius by putting the values in the M665 and M666 commands in config.g, but currently you can't save the tower position adjustments this way. I don't see this as a high priority because running a 30 second auto calibration routine every time I turn the printer on (or even at the start of each print) is no big deal. If I didn't do that, I would still want to use G30 to find Z=0 after heating the machine to operating temperature.

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roboprint
I have manually detachable probe: [www.thingiverse.com] Is it possible to do this via Web UI ?

Do what, exactly?

Quote
roboprint
Somebody already bought Duet boards from Replikeo?

Yes, several people have. One user was unlucky enough to have to have to send the board back twice, the first time because of a poorly soldered USB connector (which Replikeo now knows they need to inspect), the second time because of a missing diode. He says that Replikeo were very responsive. Other users have reported no problems, although some with early boards soldered the USB socket lugs themselves. Btw there was someone advertising a T3P3 Duet for $80 including US shipping in the For Sale section recently, and last time I looked the post hadn't been updated to say it had gone.

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roboprint
UPD: Is it possible to connect something like ESP8266 to Duet board to use WiFi instead of etherned to control printer?

Not yet. One of the issues with the ESP8266 is the poor bandwidth over the UART interface, which would severely limit the file upload speed. I use a TPLINK WR710N to connect one of my printers to WiFi.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2015 03:39AM 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].

Thank you for your answers, David. Looks like I'm going to buy Duet board

PanelDue is looks very good, but I think it very expensive for me ($93 without shipping from T3P3D). Looks like it would be better to buy china-made 7'' tablet from aliexpress for $35-$40 to control the printer via Web.

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dc42

Quote
roboprint
I have manually detachable probe: [www.thingiverse.com] Is it possible to do this via Web UI ?

Do what, exactly?

I am sorry. As you might guess, English is not my native language. I mean if I can save the results of calibration via web interface from my phone. But you've already answered my question. This is due to the fact that I attach the probe manually by hands only when I setting up/calibrating printer (correcting enstops offsets and so on), not before every start or every print. That's because I was trying to reduce the weight of effector during printing (I must switch from original 1515 extrusions to something more rigid). But this is not such a big problem to attach the probe to calibrate before printing.

Quote
roboprint
Thank you for your answers, David. Looks like I'm going to buy Duet board

PanelDue is looks very good, but I think it very expensive for me ($93 without shipping from T3P3D). Looks like it would be better to buy china-made 7'' tablet from aliexpress for $35-$40 to control the printer via Web.

Quote
dc42

Quote
roboprint
I have manually detachable probe: [www.thingiverse.com] Is it possible to do this via Web UI ?

Do what, exactly?

I am sorry. As you might guess, English is not my native language. I mean if I can save the results of calibration via web interface from my phone. But you've already answered my question. This is due to the fact that I attach the probe manually by hands only when I setting up/calibrating printer (correcting enstops offsets and so on), not before every start or every print. That's because I was trying to reduce the weight of effector during printing (I must switch from original 1515 extrusions to something more rigid). But this is not such a big problem to attach the probe to calibrate before printing.

Or you purchase one of David's absolutely excellent Mini Sensor Boards which you could leave on the effector permanently (They only weigh around 2 grammes) need just 3 wires to connect to the DUET.

David also sells the Bare PanelDue board which you could then attach your own Screen to (there are plenty on ebay for around $20 you could even go for a 5 inch one).

Doug

dc42:

I have been using RADDS but I am very seriously looking at Duet for my next project. I have a few of questions:

(1) Is there some summary page where I can read the specific enhancements that ReprapFirmware has to take advantage of the 32-bit architecture and which Repetier has not implemented? Is there a good comparison page? I like the large community that Repetier has (Marlin, too), and I am marginally worried about the smaller development community for ReprepFirmware.

(2) I recently had a stepper driver go bad, and I believe it was because of an intermittently bad connection that would effectively simulate disconnection and reconnection of the motor when the power was on. Since the drivers are built into the duet, this would have been a real problem, unless they are protected from this. Are they?

(3) I consider one of the advantages of the faster processor to be the ability to run higher microstepping rates. While this does reduce motor torque and doesn't really increase print quality, I find that it makes the printer a lot quieter, and I often have torque to spare. What is the main advantage of having the drivers built into the board?

(4) I am considering trying to build a temperature-controlled enclosure. Would ReprapFirmware be able to handle this?

Thanks,
Bill Cook _/)_

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2015 09:38AM by wfcook.

Replikeo is selling Duet board with external linear 5V regulator. If I understand correctly, the board already has the regulator (5V 2A buck converter based on A4403 chip). Why they sell board with external the regulator?

Photo: [www.replikeo.com]

Quote
wfcook
(1) Is there some summary page where I can read the specific enhancements that ReprapFirmware has to take advantage of the 32-bit architecture and which Repetier has not implemented? Is there a good comparison page? I like the large community that Repetier has (Marlin, too), and I am marginally worried about the smaller development community for ReprepFirmware.

I am not familiar with Repetier, but here are some of the features of RepRapFirmware that Repetier may not have (please check for yourself):

- A good web interface
- Digital control of stepper motor current
- Segmentation-free delta movement
- Fast (<30 seconds) least-squares delta printer auto calibration
- User-definable macros executed when you pause a print, and when you resume it. For example, on pause you might want to retract the filament, move the head out of the way, and set the head to the standby temperature, e.g. so that you can insert a nut in the print. On resume you can restore the head temperature, position and extrusion.
- No need to rebuild and re-upload the firmware when you want to change anything, because everything important can be configured using gcodes in the config.g file.

Quote
wfcook
(2) I recently had a stepper driver go bad, and I believe it was because of an intermittently bad connection that would effectively simulate disconnection and reconnection of the motor when the power was on. Since the drivers are built into the duet, this would have been a real problem, unless they are protected from this. Are they?

You can indeed damage drivers on the Duet by connecting or disconnecting stepper motors with power applied. Later versions of the Duet from RepRapPro (not sure about boards from Replikeo) use locking Molex connectors for the stepper motors.

Quote
wfcook
(3) I consider one of the advantages of the faster processor to be the ability to run higher microstepping rates. While this does reduce motor torque and doesn't really increase print quality, I find that it makes the printer a lot quieter, and I often have torque to spare. What is the main advantage of having the drivers built into the board?

You get digital control of stepper motor currents. I would rather use 0.9 degree motors than 32x microstepping, because it provides the same benefits as higher microstepping, but almost twice the torque per unit angle, and more accurate positioning (because not all microsteps are the same size). On a delta, I think this is particularly useful in order to get good Z accuracy. Also, there have been reports that DRV8825 drivers can be very noisy, because they use a fixed off-time and this causes sub-harmonics of the chopping frequency to be generated when they are used with some stepper motors.

Quote
wfcook
(4) I am considering trying to build a temperature-controlled enclosure. Would ReprapFirmware be able to handle this?

I plan to add a temperature controlled enclosure to my delta too. I have done preliminary work to support this in the firmware. Another user (zombiepantslol) who maintains another fork of RepRapFirmware claims to have implemented it fully already. He has recently incorporated my movement code into his fork, so in theory his fork now supports delta printers.

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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].

Thank you, that is very helpful.

Last question...will it support CoreXY ?

Quote
roboprint
Replikeo is selling Duet board with external linear 5V regulator. If I understand correctly, the board already has the regulator (5V 2A buck converter based on A4403 chip). Why they sell board with external the regulator?

Photo: [www.replikeo.com]

I was also curious about this.

Quote
roboprint
Replikeo is selling Duet board with external linear 5V regulator. If I understand correctly, the board already has the regulator (5V 2A buck converter based on A4403 chip). Why they sell board with external the regulator?

Photo: [www.replikeo.com]

It's because the on-board switching regulator generates too much EMI to allow a completed printer to be CE certified. So RepRapPro added the external 5V linear regulator in their later kits, and Replikeo copied them. In practice, the EMI does not seem to cause problems. I use the switching regulator on both my Duet-controlled printers, and I can only hear it generating interference on a FM radio if I place the radio right next to an unshielded Duet and tune it to a weak station.

Quote
wfcook
Last question...will it support CoreXY ?

Yes, my fork of Duet firmware supports CoreXY. I only know of 1 person using it on a CoreXY printer, but there may be others - you could ask on the CoreXY forum..

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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].

Quote
dc42

Quote
wfcook
(2) I recently had a stepper driver go bad, and I believe it was because of an intermittently bad connection that would effectively simulate disconnection and reconnection of the motor when the power was on. Since the drivers are built into the duet, this would have been a real problem, unless they are protected from this. Are they?

You can indeed damage drivers on the Duet by connecting or disconnecting stepper motors with power applied. Later versions of the Duet from RepRapPro (not sure about boards from Replikeo) use locking Molex connectors for the stepper motors.

For interest the DUET I got from Replikeo also had Locking Molex connector's on it

Doug

Thank you, I just ordered Duet from Replikeo!

It occurred to me that you can already use RepRapFirmware to do temperature control of an enclosure. Just define an additional tool using the M563 command, and associate the heater/thermistor channel for the enclosure with it. Set the standby temperature of that tool to the temperature you want, and put the tool on standby.

But I still intend to finish implementing M141 and M191 to do chamber temperature control properly.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2015 06:48AM 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].

Can someone Tell me the reference of the molex connectors? Are they 2,56mm spaced ?
Thanks for your help

Quote
nick0
Can someone Tell me the reference of the molex connectors? Are they 2,56mm spaced ?
Thanks for your help

They are Molex KK series with 2.54mm pitch. These mating connectors [www.rapidonline.com] should be suitable.

---

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].

Thanks

Quote
dc42
You can indeed damage drivers on the Duet by connecting or disconnecting stepper motors with power applied. Later versions of the Duet from RepRapPro (not sure about boards from Replikeo) use locking Molex connectors for the stepper motors.

In my case, the problem was a bad crimp on one of the pins in a locking connector, which would go intermittently bad for a fraction of a second. Pretty soon the driver was blown.

I just receved my duet from replikeo.
They put a sticker to hide the "think3dprint" and "reprappro" logo?
They also could have clean the board... there are a lot of soldering flux traces (not a big deal, but not clean) but there are so much cheaper!

I'll try it soom

Quote
nick0
I just receved my duet from replikeo.
They put a sticker to hide the "think3dprint" and "reprappro" logo?
They also could have clean the board... there are a lot of soldering flux traces (not a big deal, but not clean) but there are so much cheaper!

I'll try it soom

Check the soldering of the USB connector lugs on the top side of the board before you plug a USB cable into it, although I expect Replikeo are getting that right now.

---

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].

already done, but thanks for the tips!

Quote
wfcook

Quote
dc42
You can indeed damage drivers on the Duet by connecting or disconnecting stepper motors with power applied. Later versions of the Duet from RepRapPro (not sure about boards from Replikeo) use locking Molex connectors for the stepper motors.

In my case, the problem was a bad crimp on one of the pins in a locking connector, which would go intermittently bad for a fraction of a second. Pretty soon the driver was blown.

That's unlucky. I'm looking at whether the driver chip can be protected against motor connection/disconnection with power applied, with a view to implementing protection on the controller board I am designing.

---

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].

dc42> first thanks for your work!
second, i have follow your blog topic on installing the duet firmware and config files. I don't have a lot of time to work on it now, but i did a few test.
When i connect on the board on its IP I just have a blank page, i have to write the full path (ip/OrmerodWebControl-master/reprap.htm) to get the web interface? is it normal or do i have to put the content of OrmerodWebControl-master on the www folder and rename reprap.htm in deflaut.htm ?


thanks for your help

Quote
nick0
dc42> first thanks for your work!
second, i have follow your blog topic on installing the duet firmware and config files. I don't have a lot of time to work on it now, but i did a few test.
When i connect on the board on its IP I just have a blank page, i have to write the full path (ip/OrmerodWebControl-master/reprap.htm) to get the web interface? is it normal or do i have to put the content of OrmerodWebControl-master on the www folder and rename reprap.htm in deflaut.htm ?


thanks for your help

OrmerodWebControl is no longer the current web interface. Use DuetWebControl, which you can pick up either from the SD-image/www folder in my RepRapFirmware repo, or from [github.com] which is the master source. Either way, copy the whole tree to /www on the SD card. You don't need to rename reprap.htm.

I've just updated my blog entry to reflect this change.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2015 12:44PM 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].

thanks for the update!

I have received my board from Replikeo too. Flux isn't washed, usb connector soldered correctly. Logos are hidden by glued white paper.



Reading David's articles about fimware and comissioning now