Strange Behavior - Panelmax (Ultipanel) w/ Ramps 1.4 / Marlin

I've been seeing some strange goings on with my attempt to add a Panelmax to my MendelMax / RAMPS 1.4 setup. Some background first: the printer components were all self sourced with the RAMPS board coming pre-assembled by Ultimachine. Printing from my laptop, everything works flawlessly, excellent prints from day one. I've been wanting to add the Panelmax as a means of monitoring the machine and separating it from the laptop. I have been following the build directions per TommyC's blog. I did not purchase his kit as the lead times were longer than I wanted to wait. That being said, I went to great lengths to match his build components as close as I could (even down to the ribbon cable coloring). The only item that is not a direct replacement for his BOM is the SD card reader. Now to the issues:

1. I've been able to get the LCD to work first try, and seems to display everything the way it should. The click encoder, however, is becoming one of the most diabolical devices I have come across yet. When I first assembled the protoboard for the encoder and hooked it up to the board it would read the push button just fine. It does not, however, recognize the rotary function. I can only scroll between the first two options, if ever, and the encoder seems real twitchy (several scroll actions happen when rotating one detent). I have triple checked my configuration.h / pins.h file and have even gone so far as to load his files just to see if they would work. Still no dice. I then tried configuring a different set of pins on AUX-4 (31, 35, 37) rather than SERVO (6, 5, 4), Again, same behavior. I understand the basic concept of the rotary encoder and its wiring (A / B = encoder, C = common ground, D = click, E = common ground) and have since disassembled the protoboard and wired the encoder directly to RAMPS with the same results. Logic would say that one of two things are happening. The rotary encoder is bad or has too much "bounce" for RAMPS to properly understand, or something is glitchy with the firmware. Since many other people have been able to get this to work, I am leaning towards the rotary encoder being at fault. Has anyone else had similar issues?

2. As I mentioned above, the only part that was not a direct replacement for the BOM that TommyC has listed is the SD reader. I purchased this SD Sheild as it is 5V and has similar pinouts as the one used by TommyC. I can get power to the card reader but that's about it. I've matched up the pinouts on the card reader to those on the RAMPS board and have wired the SDCARDDETECT as per TommyC's tutorial. I have commented out the SDCARDDETECT line in Marlin and still see no life to the card reader (other than power). Is there a limit to the size of card for an Arduino SD sheild (I'm using a 4GB card)? Anything I am missing?

Sorry for the longwinded post, I've been going a little mad trying to figure this out on my own. Thanks for the help

1) I had a similar issue and it was a little solder flux residue between the pins and after scrubing the coonections with alcohol the problem went away.

2) I also had a similar problem with the SD. I used kliments sketch (SDramps wiki page) to figure out it was my SD cards. I had tried really old 32mb card a couple of 512mb cards and then finally pulled the 8gb card from my camera and it was the only one that would work for me even though I have read that over 4gb will not work. Go figure.

---

FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

I have the same problem as Archi - my encoder from digikey is a quadrature encoder - I think the all are. Have not read any good description of how the Ultralcd menus are supposed to work, but I can't get past the second menu entry. No solder flux here...
Click button does what, and encoder does what? Click advances the menu entries - sometimes - and the encoder seems to bring up the menu. Seems backwards...

Dang - I just read my spec sheet - on these encoders, the two contact side is the encoder, and the three contact side is the switch... Center pin is encoder common. Here goes nothing...

If either of you are using a 2 line screen you will need to patch marlin to allow you to scroll through the menu. You can have a look at my branch of Marlin [github.com] for the few lines changed in ultralcd.pde

---

FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Demon spawn indeed - check your spec sheet carefully. On the three pin side, the center conection is not used at all. There is an internal connection to common from one of the switch pins - and you have to get it right. Use a test meter.
All is working perfect now. Only 4 pins used.

That would explain some of the strange behavior that I was seeing where rotating the encoder seemed to act as the push button and vice versa. Which encoder are you using? I picked up a Panasonic one from digikey and was curious if it was the same one that you have been working with. Will have to try swapping the two / three pin config and see what happens.

Mine is Digikey part number P12336-ND, Panasonic 12 mm square GS Encoder type EVEJB, 20 detent.
Please note - you can't just reverse sides. Only one pin on the 3 pin side works correctly as ground. Well the center pin would work as ground too, but only one pin works correctly as switch output. Wish I was better at ascii art... Two pin encoder side works either way; set it so it counts upward the way you like.

Looking down on the encoder from the top, with the three terminal side on the top, switch output is the far left. The other two terminals are both common. Hope that helps! Worst data sheet I have ever seen - the terminals are not numbered, and no sample switch diagram. Fortunately the mechanical diagram indicated the encoder side.

Genius, genius, genius!!! I have the exact same encoder and I can't tell you many different combinations of wiring I have tried in an effort to get this demonic thing to work. Still working on the SD card, but I will take partial victories any day!

Been playing around with trying to get the SD card reader to respond to RAMPS and still am not having much luck. Does anyone else have experience with this card http://arduino-info.wikispaces.com/SD-Cards? I have been able to match up the pins on the SD Sheild to their corresponding RAMPS pins and I get power but it does not recognize when a formatted card is inserted. It does not seem that wiring to the SDCARDETECT pin (far left pin in picture) works with this particular card. I have made the appropriate modifications to configuration.h file as far as I can tell. I have also heard that there is a software method for reinitializing the card but don't see an option for it in the menu system. Thoughts?

archistrong Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
Is there a
> limit to the size of card for an Arduino SD sheild
> (I'm using a 4GB card)? Anything I am missing?

Yes, it is up to 2GB, all cards up to 2GB working perfectly even kingston cards.

But I'm not sure how is with your SD shield, personally I'm using this Sd RAMPS addon from eBay [www.ebay.com] which I got together in complete set together with RAMPS.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2012 03:17PM by tommy_rapper.

tommy_rapper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> archistrong Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> Is there a
> > limit to the size of card for an Arduino SD
> sheild
> > (I'm using a 4GB card)? Anything I am missing?
>
> Yes, it is up to 2GB, all cards up to 2GB working
> perfectly even kingston cards.
>
> But I'm not sure how is with your SD shield,
> personally I'm using this Sd RAMPS addon from eBay
> [www.ebay.com] which I got
> together in complete set together with RAMPS.

I have a bunch of cards below 4gb that do not work (32mb, 512mb, etc).

I have 8gb ones that do work and are not partitioned smaller.

---

FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

So I was finally able to work out all of the Gremlins from the setup only to find a couple of new ones. Rotary encoder works just fine now (much thanks Robert!) and I was able to get the SD card reader to detect a 4GB card (SDDetect needs to be manually grounded via switch). The new little kwirk is the visibility of the LCD. When I first turn on the machine (after it has been off for at least 10min.) the LCD characters are bright, clear and easy to read. Slowly, the LCD characters will start to fade and the thermistor readings will go wild (swings as wide as 10C). This will continue until the LCD contrast is nearly unreadable (regardless of potentiometer setting). Also, when connected via USB to a laptop the thermistor readings are still going wild in the Host (repetier) software. If I unplug the 10 pin LCD cable, the host software reads the thermistors correctly. Obviously this leads me to beleive that it has to do with the LCD itself but beyond that I'm sorta stumped. I'm inclined to order a new one in the hopes that this one is faulty but thought I would seek the sage advice of the forum first. Thanks,

--UPDATE-- When plugged in via USB only (12v power supply turned off) the LCD and thermistors work correctly. When I switch on the 12V supply then things start getting out of hand. I tried changing the LCD_UPDATE_INTERVAL settings to 10 and then 5000 (default 1000) with massively wide swings in temp (5c to 55c). Seems like the LCD is introducing interference in the RAMPS board and messing with the voltage from the thermistors.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2012 11:16PM by archistrong.

I'm having strange behavior with my LCD panel. I "adapted" tommyc's design, sourcing my own parts. Everything works fine, it's just that every once in a while, seemingly randomly, the LCD goes blank. The printer continues to work and interact with my host software, I can even speed up/slow down the print by turning the encoder. I just can't see what I'm doing on the screen.

I've played around with both brightness and contrast, but nothing seems to help. The only thing that makes me think it is NOT hardware is that hitting the reset button and rebooting the arduino solves the problem.

Any luck with this problem? I'm experiencing a very similar issue.