Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 09, 2015 01:55AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 294 |
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 09, 2015 05:37AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 14,672 |
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 09, 2015 07:43AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 550 |
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 09, 2015 02:59PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 294 |
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Frans@France
For euro 37,- (~$41) you can buy a Ramps & 2004 LCD Controller & MEGA 2560 r3 and 5 x A4988 Drivers and get free shipping.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 09, 2015 03:54PM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 14,672 |
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Frans@France
For euro 37,- (~$41) you can buy a Ramps & 2004 LCD Controller & MEGA 2560 r3 and 5 x A4988 Drivers and get free shipping.Quote
dc42
You can get a Duet for $50.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 10, 2015 05:09AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 294 |
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dc42
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Frans@France
For euro 37,- (~$41) you can buy a Ramps & 2004 LCD Controller & MEGA 2560 r3 and 5 x A4988 Drivers and get free shipping.Quote
dc42
You can get a Duet for $50.
Even if your 37 euro RAMPS board doesn't suffer from the problems that some Chinese RAMPS boards do, I think the extra $9 + shipping is well worth it for the Ethernet interface supporting DuetWebControl. And the native USB interface. And the software-controlled stepper motor currents. And the higher stepper motor drive current thanks to better stepper driver cooling. And the extra processing power that provides smoother stepper motor operation. And the capability to turn up the PSU voltage if the bed heater turns out to be underpowered. And not having to rebuild and re-upload the firmware every time I want to change the firmware configuration.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 10, 2015 05:56AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 550 |
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dc42
..the Ethernet interface supporting DuetWebControl. And the native USB interface. And the software-controlled stepper motor currents. And the higher stepper motor drive current thanks to better stepper driver cooling. And the extra processing power that provides smoother stepper motor operation. And the capability to turn up the PSU voltage if the bed heater turns out to be underpowered. And not having to rebuild and re-upload the firmware every time I want to change the firmware configuration.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 10, 2015 05:58AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 4,977 |
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Frans@France
except for that stupid fixed 16 microstep on the RAMPS
Triffid Hunter's Calibration Guide | --> X <-- Drill for new Monitor | Most important Gcode. |
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 10, 2015 06:08AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 550 |
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Gaou
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Frans@France
For euro 37,- (~$41) you can buy a Ramps & 2004 LCD Controller & MEGA 2560 r3 and 5 x A4988 Drivers and get free shipping.
Frans can you share a link please of someone reliable with this kind of prices .
Pavlos
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 10, 2015 06:15AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 550 |
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 16, 2015 06:59PM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 363 |
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dc42
You will need to add an SD card socket to the RAMPS in order to get good print quality.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 17, 2015 04:50AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 14,672 |
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Garry Bartsch
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dc42
You will need to add an SD card socket to the RAMPS in order to get good print quality.
Hi, could you explain? Do you mean printing should be done from the SD card and not over USB? Would poor print quality result because the USB didn't pass data reliably? I'm just guessing why this might be because I obviously don't know . Thanks.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 20, 2015 02:54PM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 363 |
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dc42
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Garry Bartsch
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dc42
You will need to add an SD card socket to the RAMPS in order to get good print quality.
Hi, could you explain? Do you mean printing should be done from the SD card and not over USB? Would poor print quality result because the USB didn't pass data reliably? I'm just guessing why this might be because I obviously don't know . Thanks.
Yes. Some people report that using a dedicated host PC or RPi feeding the USB data to the printer, they can keep up the data fate sufficiently. Other people report that even using an RPi running Octoprint, they can't. The USB-over-serial without hardware or driver-level flow control is a piece of atrocious design (I suspect it wasn't designed, it just happened because that is all the Arduino Mega provides).
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. December 20, 2015 04:56PM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 14,672 |
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Garry Bartsch
I connect to my Mendel90 from PC over USB and I have very rarely experienced interruptions. My understanding was these disruptions were caused by a earth/ground loop (?) and I didn't realize it could be insufficient data rate.
Does RAMPS possibly receive data more slowly than the Melzi that comes with the Mendel90?
I plan to use RAMPS on my new machine (convenience and price) but because of a disability I can't be transferring an SD card back and forth.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 03, 2016 03:46PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 245 |
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 04, 2016 01:17AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 363 |
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dc42
The disruptions I was referring to are short pauses that increase the printing time and cause print quality issues ("pause zits"). How much they affect you will depend on what else (if anything) the host PC is doing at the time (which in turn is affected by which operating system it is running), how fast it is, what host program you run on it, how fast you are printing (faster = more pause zits), and how complicated the shape is (curves are more problematic than straight lines). A RAMPS should not be any worse than a Melzi in this respect. However, for your situation I suggest Duet electronics, because you can print from SD card and upload files to it at high speed from the web interface.
The ground loop that is usually formed when you connect a PC and a 3D printer via USB is indeed a common source of more serious interruptions, i.e. print hanging or controller resetting. To reduce the risk, connect the printer and the PC and nothing else to the same power distribution block, and make sure the USB cable has a ferrite bead on it. Controlling the printer over Ethernet instead of USB avoids the issue, because connecting a printer and PC via Ethernet does not create a ground loop. This is an option with most 32-bit controller boards, but not with RAMPS.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 04, 2016 02:00AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 245 |
The problems with pauses and such really isn't an issue anymore. I havn't done a proper analysis about the subject (obviously), but I don't ever see people complain about it anymore. Not here or anywhere.Quote
Garry Bartsch
I guess I have been very lucky never to have experienced those pause zits. I really appreciate the way you explained the issues. I'm not ready yet for electronics so have more time to gather info. Best regards ..
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 04, 2016 04:07PM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 14,672 |
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dintid
I have been looking much at Duet 0.8.5, which is a very fine board. It just have some limitiations which isn't compatible with my usage scenarios (choice of display and sensors + not true 32bit firmware and 3.3v instead of 5v for add-on boards.)
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 06, 2016 07:43AM |
Registered: 8 years ago Posts: 181 |
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 06, 2016 07:15PM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 14,672 |
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rklauco
Just regarding the prices... From China one can get MUCH cheaper overall solution - with all the downsides of the China production, of course.
Like:
- Mega 2560 R3 for 5.64EUR
- RAMPS 1.4 board for 4.04 EUR
- 5 stepper drivers including heatsinks for 5.47 EUR
Overall cost of 15.15 EUR.
Just take care about the fuses and the power source
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 07, 2016 02:36AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 245 |
Customers DO demand something better, but seems the EU/US manufacturers fails to understand what it is consumers want.Quote
dc42
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rklauco
Just regarding the prices... From China one can get MUCH cheaper overall solution - with all the downsides of the China production, of course.
Like:
- Mega 2560 R3 for 5.64EUR
- RAMPS 1.4 board for 4.04 EUR
- 5 stepper drivers including heatsinks for 5.47 EUR
Overall cost of 15.15 EUR.
Just take care about the fuses and the power source
The sad thing is that an all-in-one board with a 32-bit processor, proper USB port, four or five properly-cooled driver chips (not useless stick-on heatsinks) and an adequate 5V regulator would cost significantly less to produce in the same numbers than that Arduino/RAMPS/drivers combination, and should therefore cost even less than 15.15 EUR. But we're stuck with Arduino/RAMPS at the low-cost end until customers demand something better.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 07, 2016 04:41AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 14,672 |
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dintid
Customers DO demand something better, but seems the EU/US manufacturers fails to understand what it is consumers want.Quote
dc42
Quote
rklauco
Just regarding the prices... From China one can get MUCH cheaper overall solution - with all the downsides of the China production, of course.
Like:
- Mega 2560 R3 for 5.64EUR
- RAMPS 1.4 board for 4.04 EUR
- 5 stepper drivers including heatsinks for 5.47 EUR
Overall cost of 15.15 EUR.
Just take care about the fuses and the power source
The sad thing is that an all-in-one board with a 32-bit processor, proper USB port, four or five properly-cooled driver chips (not useless stick-on heatsinks) and an adequate 5V regulator would cost significantly less to produce in the same numbers than that Arduino/RAMPS/drivers combination, and should therefore cost even less than 15.15 EUR. But we're stuck with Arduino/RAMPS at the low-cost end until customers demand something better.
RepRap Pro died beause of it. Not because of deflating 3D market, but because they FAILED to understand the majoriy of people do not want a 3D printer in order to make a second 3D printer. Nor do they want flimsy printed parts, but something slick like aluminum, dibond or similar. Also needs to LOOK good. Not some davinci machine. Those days are over.
Most people actually do NOT want an RJ45 plug... we want wifi.
Consumers do not want crimp-on solutions. We want either screw terminals (I do know some drawbacks here, but then scale them as needed for bed) or preassembled wires. At the very least a bundle of the needed connectors MUST be included, as it is impossible to find for normal people.
Normal people do not own a crimping Tool anyway. If they do get a crimping Tool it is a real chore to do unless you are an Expert at it (I own one and crimp a good deal for Work and in private)
Consumers do not want to be force-fed 1 or display. We want options.
Consumers gets confused by the new 3.3v of some 32bit boards as all the aux options for Ramps are 5v,so for normal people it Means they can't port to new hardware.... and can't even find aux options for the new hardware - like PT100 and thermocoupler amplifier boards.... it MIGHT be possible somehow, but I havn't found that out yet, and I have asked and searched around a lot. (think3dprint3d and asked youdc42) - you might even have answered, but not in a way a normal non-Electronics person can understand.
Ramps have it's drawbacks for sure, but it is unbeatable in its versatility.
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 07, 2016 08:31AM |
Admin Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 6,995 |
Re: Wishing to buy a ramps but i am afraid. January 07, 2016 09:09AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 245 |
It is when the cheap board fails to down the 12-24v input to 3.3v and just puts full load through and it just blows the Electronics.Quote
Dust
re 5v vs 3v... level shifting boards are a "dime a dozen"...
(ok really $1USD for 4 lines )
This is really not an issue