Minimum requirements to test RAMPS 1.4 board

I recently obtained my kit for a prusa mendel i2, and I have downloaded and installed the drivers for the audrino board and the audrino software. I downloaded the sprinter software, uploaded it to the audrino software and then uploaded it to the I/O board. Basically I followed all the instructions in this video: [www.youtube.com]#!

I then opened pronterface to try and move the stepper motors, and i know i have them connected correctly, but they won't turn. Pronterface has the board registered and i can click the buttons, but the stepper motors will not turn.

I currently have 2 stepper motors connected to the ramps board, the X axis and the Y axis. I have the board connected to the computer and an AC power supply connected to the Audrino board. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Can someone please help me?
-

You have powered it wrong. you can't power the ramps or the pololu drivers like that

You need to supply 12v to the 12v 5amp side of the ramps, that in turn powers the mega via D1, and powers the pololu drivers with the 12v it needs.

leave the power jack on the mega empty.

Refer to [reprap.org] for details.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2014 02:55AM by Dust.

Hello. Did you finally solve your issue?

I am trying to test out the motors using Pronterface (on my MAC computer) and I keep getting a temperature error and message to reset printer when I select connect to printer.

All I want to do is test the stepper motor movement through Pronterface. I have not hooked up anything else other than one stepper motor to my MEGA 2560 + RAMPS 1.4 (with drivers of course). I have the MEGA 2560 power by my 12V 30A power supply (both inputs to the RAMPS board are powered up.

I know the stepper motor works, because I was able to run the Marlin stepper motor test file and the motor is working fine.

Is there a way to just test a stepper motor without hooking anything else up to the RAMPS 1.4 board? Or do I have to hook up all the other electronic components to test out Pronterface (thermistors, extruder, heat bed, end stops, etc.)

You may need to put jumpers where the endstops would be connected, otherwise the endstops will appear to be activated and the firmware may refuse to move the motors. But I don't think you need to connect thermistors, and certainly not heaters.

You may need to send the M302 command before you can move the extruder. Come to think of it, you can test a stepper motor connected to the extruder drive connections even without jumpers on the endstop connections.

---

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].

I think I found the answer. I set the temperature sensors to 0 as shown below:

// 147 is Pt100 with 4k7 pullup
// 110 is Pt100 with 1k pullup (non standard)

#define TEMP_SENSOR_0 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_1 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_2 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_BED 0

I was able to get Pronterface running and was able to check the X-axis motor!

I got an SD error in the side viewer window. I'll tackle that later.

I also got my 12864 Full Graphic Smart Controller working - sort of. I'm able to see the start up display and the first screen after that, however when I click to go to the next screen I can see the options but the knob doesn't scroll up or down!
Also, the display dims after about a minute of non-use and is very hard to see. Also, no way to light it back up. More things to figure out through searches i guess.

If the display dims after a minute then the LCD backlight is probably drawing too much current for the 5V regulator on the Arduino, which is going into thermal limiting and reducing the voltage on the 5V rail. Put multimeter on the 5V rail to test this theory. 12864 displays vary a lot and some may need a series resistor for the backlight.

I prefer to drive LCD backlights from the unregulated supply (e.g.12V) via a series resistor, to avoid excessive power dissipation in the voltage regulator.

---

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].

I have the Arduino MEGA 2560 + RAMPS 1.4 + 12864 LCD Display hooked up to my laptop USB port. Nothing else is hooked up. I also ran the same set up directly from the 12V power supply (without the USB connection) and I get the same result.

I timed the display and it goes into a sort of sleep mode after about 1 minute. The backlight stays on - I have a bright blue background, but the display characters are really faint.

I