Techzone Huxley woes

So my roommate was so unfortunate as to purchase one of the infamous TechZone Huxley kits. We've build the chasis and made a number of recommended modifications listed on the reprap wiki.

What I'm stuck on is the monotronics. We suspect that the Tip/Bed Manager daughter-board is defective. Of course, TechZone is long out of business, and the wiki guide has numerous dead links. The current suggestion is to apparently install old versions for the board firmware and an old version of the Arduino environment. I've tried over and over again to get things set up but I've hit a brick wall as far as progress goes in flashing the FiveD firmware. At each step I tried to match the version numbers of the Arduino IDE to the Sanguino, but it seems every possible combination has failed with unique, incomprehensible output. Granted, I am running in Arch Linux and I might just need to run all of the firmware-setup in Windows to circumvent any mistakes I might be making in installing each version of the Arduino IDE.

TL;DR: Does anyone actually have a working TechZone Huxley with the firmwares provided on the wiki? How the hell did you set up the firmware? Furthermore, is it possible to determine if the board is bad?

So, since the daugther board isn't even fit for being a paperweight, I've been wondering about the Sprinter mod for Gen3. Does anyone have any experience with this process? How much extra stuff would I have to buy just to get this lousy thing to function?

KD0SKH Wrote:
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> TL;DR: Does anyone actually have a working
> TechZone Huxley with the firmwares provided on the
> wiki?


Yup. Although I cannot guarantee it's the exact same model as yours, there have been at leat 2 revisions of the monotronics by techzone.


> How the hell did you set up the firmware?

I don't remember the whole setup process exactly. I can try again from scratch on a different (linux) computer and document it, but don't hold your breath on that.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

I gave up trying to get things working under Linux. I have found that using Windows was a more successful path to flashing the firmware.

KD0SKH -

I have an unused TZ Huxley monotronics board if you really want it. It has never been out of the box except too look at it, then to put it back. That said, I have never tried to hook it up.

My intent is to use Gen 7 electronics from the start, along with a conversion to 6mm smooth rods, LM6UU bearings, and an X-carriage modified to use LM6UU bearings (see "http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17967", by mikemike). Apparently, TZ mixed 1/4 inch smooth rods with 6mm threaded rods. If you try to force a 1/4" smooth rod into an LM6UU bearing, it will strip the micro-ball bearings out of their channels. The roller bearings and brass bushing on the TZ Huxley appear to be an inferior design, albeit at the time of the design's creation, other makers used similar arrangements.

My framework is finally together. I ran out of 3mm locknuts, and although the number I was given matched the amount on my Bill of Materials (BOM), the amount was insufficient for a complete build. I chalk it up to improper engineering practice on the behalf of TZ, poor material accounting across design modifications.

If you want the electronics, send me a message. $20? Or, make me an offer. Good luck with your build!

--Phuzzy

Phuzzy,

I'm sorry it took me so long to respond to your offer for the A/D board. I found out how to flash the firmware and get things working. Sadly, I can't remember what I did specifically (I should have posted, d'oh!)

Anyway, thank you for the offer!