Parts compatibility for stand alone RAMPS

Hello all, I'm in the process of buying my Mega, RAMPS 1.4 shield and pololu drivers and I'd like to run standalone with LCD controller and SD card. I've mostly been shopping on Amazon for convenience. I notice that there's a header on the RAMPS boards intended for use with SD card/LCD that doesn't appear to be there on a standard RAMPS board. Are there differences in traces/components or just this missing header? If they're the same I'd be inclined to buy a genuine Arduino Mega and Pololu drivers as kit with the controller header appears to be a generic Chinese made board and the Mega included is "Arduino Mega compatible". The Mega clone is probably fine but I've read that people have had problems with the generic white Pololu knock off drivers. Any thoughts or experiences on this? Thanks.

Can you post a link to the item you are looking at? Many people use the reprapdiscount kits available on ebay and from there online shop. I think they are the people that designed one of the most common lcd units used.

Sure, Here's the controller and RAMPS board:

[www.amazon.com]

And here's the LCD controller:

[www.amazon.com]

They actually look identical to the reprapdiscount parts. Only difference I noticed is that the LCD controller when bought through reprapdiscount comes with the extra header to add to a standard RAMPS 1.4 board. So I guess that might answer my question about board compatibility. I'm just getting started with this project but it seems like lots of people use their parts. Do people seem to have good luck with their boards and particularly the stepper drivers? I suppose I could buy direct from them but I was worried that shipping might take a while if they ship from Hong Kong. After looking around their site, I see their are two upgraded versions of the controller both with larger displays. I didn't realize how much control of axis movement etc. is available through the controller. I thought it would basically be just picking a g-code file and saying print. Although I suppose your options are dictated more by the firmware you run rather than the controller. Pretty cool. If shipping is reasonably quick to NA I might just order direct. Thanks for your help.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2013 10:15PM by CCl4.

The amazon ones would be compatable with one another.

the reprap discount stuff is good. ice never heard a bad report about them. If buying from them via eBay they ship using FedEx. When I ordered from them it took 3 days. I've known it take longer ordering locally. I assume the same can be said of ther web shop.

Sounds good. This might be a tough question but I wonder if they have a shipping depot within the states? I couldn't easily figure that out on their site. Either way I think I'll be giving them a try for my extruder because they don't seem to sell them on Amazon yet. For now I have an Amazon gift card to use up..... Thanks for your advice.