Arduino and Ramps woes

I control my Ordbot printer with an Arduino 2560 Mega and a Ramps 1.4 shield.
The electronics has never been truly reliable and I have had to replace the boards and stepper drivers on more than one occasion.
The good thing is I can find my way around the firmware - I am using Repetier and the components are dirt cheap, mostly made in China I guess.

Now the whole thing has just gone down again after a fairly long period of running OK. I am at a loss to find what the problem is. None of the printer stepper motors turn.

I have a whole drawer of spare boards; about 4 Arduinos, 6 or 7 Ramps boards and a dozen stepper drivers. Some were brand new.

The Arduino's seem to flash firmware OK. I have tried swapping boards but no motors move despite what I do. On one or two boards the hot end heats up but not the bed. Temp indicators are OK. I am not sure whether one board had a fault and it has caused other components to fail.

I now have no idea what parts are good and what are bad. I have ordered new voltage regulators for the Arduino's.

It would be nice if someone made a test rig for testing these boards. Just plug them in and it would tell you if it was OK.

Alternatively are there test procedures available for Arduino / Ramps /stepper drivers?

I hate to be blunt - but isn't it time to consider buying a decent board? Something in 32-bit, made & supplied by a reputable company?

RAMPS/Arduino can be OK (one of my printers still uses it) but many of the Chinese-made boards are of barely-adequate quality and fail with monotonous regularity. I have a RAMPS shield somewhere that has never worked, even after I'd cleaned all of the minute solder splashes off its back. There have been so many other instances of problems such as this.

Just think about how much all of those cheap boards have cost you, when you add them all together.

David J, thanks. You can be as blunt as you want. I want advice. Any suggestions what to look at?

I have looked at the Duet but with the LCD it is 170 GBP + VAT & del. I do like the idea of continuing to use Repetier firmware, that I am familiar with. It would be very expensive though if one failed and had to be replaced.

I can find my way around a Raspberry pi and have looked at the Gertbot add on controller board. Two boards would be needed, but
Pi stuff is cheap and well made. The pi could be used as the host computer and the controller.

My CoreXY has a Duet 0.6 - the most modern is 0.85, but 0.6 is still available, cheaper and effective if its functionality is enough - you don't really need the LCD, as the web interface is very useful and easy to use. Don't forget that the web interface can be monitored from a phone or tablet, if your PC isn't handy! I believe that the interface can also show the video from a webcam, but I haven't tried that.

Apart from that, there are other 32-bit boards available, but I have no experience of those.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2016 11:42AM by David J.

I have a Ordbot Hardon with a Mega Ramps controller.

Perhaps to start over
Find a known good Arduino Mega (test it with example sketches)
Mount your best RAMPS on it with good stepper drivers, jumpers in the right place
Test your power supply measure under a load.
Check all connectors and connections, anything suspect measure for continuity
may be a good time for all cables to be 4 pair shielded cables even end stops

With all that
Load RAMPS test code
[reprap.org]
It switches on and off all the MOSFET outputs (this will make the leds blink) just be careful not to have the heated bed and extruder heater connected unless you want to heat them. Plus it will move back and forth all the stepper motors connected.

If that works OK

Configure and load repetier firmware

Print away be happy

Quote
David J
I hate to be blunt - but isn't it time to consider buying a decent board? Something in 32-bit, made & supplied by a reputable company?

RAMPS/Arduino can be OK (one of my printers still uses it) but many of the Chinese-made boards are of barely-adequate quality and fail with monotonous regularity. I have a RAMPS shield somewhere that has never worked, even after I'd cleaned all of the minute solder splashes off its back. There have been so many other instances of problems such as this.

Just think about how much all of those cheap boards have cost you, when you add them all together.

Arduino and Ramps are perfectly capeable, so telling him to get a "decent board" is really just a very misguided sentiment. I have 2 psc 32bit controllers incoming, but Ramps is a very capeable solution, especially considering the Price.

Most problems really stems from bad user-wiring and the occoasional bad driver. 1 driver can sabotage everything.

Calling all Chinese products for bad is really just an uninformed statement. Most of these consumer Electronics come from China, and yes, some are bad, but most are very good. Only BAD ramps/arduino I ever got was manufactured in the UK.

I have bought from several Places in the EU and from China.. guess where it was all made? That's right, in China. Except the faulty piece from the UK.

I'd sit Down and test everything... starting by finding a working arduino and then go through the ramps boards one at a time. Then test the arduino's using the working Ramps, if you have no other way to do it.

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My Instructables - both total newbie instructables and some for intermediate users.
My Designs on Thingiverse
YouTube channel containing a few 3D printing videos - they are videos for my Instructables, and mostly not standalone.
Ultius / Tantillus Thingiverse Group

Quote
cozmicray
I have a Ordbot Hardon with a Mega Ramps controller.

Perhaps to start over
Find a known good Arduino Mega (test it with example sketches)
Mount your best RAMPS on it with good stepper drivers, jumpers in the right place
Test your power supply measure under a load.
Check all connectors and connections, anything suspect measure for continuity
may be a good time for all cables to be 4 pair shielded cables even end stops

With all that
Load RAMPS test code
[reprap.org]
It switches on and off all the MOSFET outputs (this will make the leds blink) just be careful not to have the heated bed and extruder heater connected unless you want to heat them. Plus it will move back and forth all the stepper motors connected.

If that works OK

Configure and load repetier firmware

Print away be happy

Totally agree with that

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2016 05:05AM by dintid.

---

My Instructables - both total newbie instructables and some for intermediate users.
My Designs on Thingiverse
YouTube channel containing a few 3D printing videos - they are videos for my Instructables, and mostly not standalone.
Ultius / Tantillus Thingiverse Group

Quote
dintid

Arduino and Ramps are perfectly capeable, so telling him to get a "decent board" is really just a very misguided sentiment. I have 2 psc 32bit controllers incoming, but Ramps is a very capeable solution, especially considering the Price.

Most problems really stems from bad user-wiring and the occoasional bad driver. 1 driver can sabotage everything.

Calling all Chinese products for bad is really just an uninformed statement. Most of these consumer Electronics come from China, and yes, some are bad, but most are very good. Only BAD ramps/arduino I ever got was manufactured in the UK.

I have bought from several Places in the EU and from China.. guess where it was all made? That's right, in China. Except the faulty piece from the UK.

I'd sit Down and test everything... starting by finding a working arduino and then go through the ramps boards one at a time. Then test the arduino's using the working Ramps, if you have no other way to do it.

My comments were written because I had a similar experience with RAMPS - it took 3 purchases to get 1 working set. The ones that failed had appalling QA issues - solder splashes, poor joints, etc. This is partly my own fault as I was foolish enough to buy cheap ebay stuff - if I'd splashed out a bit more money I could have bought a properly-made RAMPS board like this one, backed it up with a genuine Arduino board and some drivers from Pololu (or similar) and I would have had a reasonably robust system - but the whole lot would have cost almost as much as my Duet board, and would still have the set of known issues that all RAMPS/Arduino systems have (e.g. low-rated 5v regulator on the Arduino, connectors working at/beyond their maximum current rating, tedious reconfiguration for minor changes).

The RAMPS on my Prusa has now given me a year of good service so I'm not condemning it out of hand - it does have the advantage of being the de-facto standard as far as PC interfaces go, so it will always work with things like RepetierHost, Pronterface and so on. It's just that my efforts to buy another for my new printer were thwarted by terrible build quality, hence my decision to swap to a better board backed up by a UK supplier with whom I could raise any problems that may arise (even if, ultimately, the board was made in China).

I welcome all comments, thanks.
I say thank god for Chinese manufacturers. I have had some real bargains from Chinese suppliers, not just for 3d printing. The problem is you don't know what you are going to get. It is very competitive and dog eat dog there so manufacturers will use cheap, or cheaper, components to stay in the game. Quality is therefore the big issue. If it was a level playing field I would rather buy an Arduino from Italy than China.

The arduino mega/ ramps combo is probably the most used controller for Repraps; or maybe I am wrong? The point I was making is that a procedure for testing the boards is needed. I have been running my printer now for a few years and parts have failed periodically, usually stepper drivers (and yes I have tried them all G3D, A4988 and DVR8825). It was cheap to just swap parts. I keep a supply of everything. There was one occasion when I just replaced the lot.

What is frustrating now is I may have a faulty component, possibly a stepper or maybe a duff ramps board and it is bringing everything down. I don't know what is good and what is bad. What we need I think is a test procedure for the boards and it should be a sticky. I have seen some incomplete procedures on google but nothing comprehensive. I am a retired Chemical Engineer, not an Electronics Engineer. If there is a chemical reaction involved, I am your man, but not electronics sadly.

If someone made a test board for an Arduino, and also another for a Ramps board, that you could plug the board into and a PC had the software to take it through a test cycle, I would be ready to buy one (maybe made in China ......... ha ha).

When the Arduino/ ramps combo works and the steppers have all been adjusted correctly, it is perfectly adequate imho. It ran for a long time without problem. I have however been looking round at other more reliable controllers and I have just bought a DUET 0.6 board, however in my ignorance I have just found out it does not run Repetier firmware. I really like Repetier's online configuration tool and I have the firmware fine tuned for my printer over a long period. I am reluctant to start over with the settings.

The advantage with the Duet is that you can edit the config file directly through the web interface. For example, If I have to reset the Z height after changing or cleaning the nozzle then I can do it in just a minute or so - all I have to do is make the changes, authorise a board reset when asked and the new setting is operational. This arrangement makes it easier to get a system working properly.

But I do know what you mean about not wishing to lose all the work you've already done - I have put a lot of effort into making my Prusa i3 work the way I like, and I'd hate to start again. However, if my RAMPS dies for some reason then the whole setup will get replaced.

I knew the Duet is based on the same chip as the Arduino Due, which is supported by Repetier firmware, so in my ignorance I assumed the Duet was going to be the same.

I have asked Repetier what the latest position is but they have yet to reply.

That would be the best of both worlds for me; continuing to use the Repetier online configuration tool and the Duet web interface.