Best Ramps Board?

Hi Guys, We are producing a 3d printer based on the Ramps 1.4/Arduino Mega 2560 board.
Can somebody point us towards a good quality Ramps supplier? Recently Tried and Tested Staticboards and the product was quite decent... BUT they informed us that they are discontinuing production of their boards.
Chinese clones are a disaster. Bent pins, shorted soldering, the list is shameful. When we tested Staticboards, the difference was overwhelming.
So my question, who can we go to? what are the basic differences of the various Ramps series. We have tested the TMC2130 and we need the ramps board to run on it.
Any leads appreciated. Quality is supreme.

On an item that exists in a highly price sensitive market, like the RAMPS 1.4 boards do, I would expect that you will need to make a deal with a producer of boards, in order to get the right balance between quality and price.

Any "honest" producer (where you can get to talk to actual technicians, or machine operators, and not just sales people) will most likely be able to set up a production line (or a production tun) where you can get the highest possible quality, for the money you are willing to spend.

I know [www.seeedstudio.com] have their own PCB assembly production line. Why not try out their combined PCB production and assembly offers.

You might also be able to talk to [www.adafruit.com]. They also have their own PCB assembly line. And it might be possible to persuade them to do a High-Quality production run, of some RAMPS 1.4 boards.


You might also be able to find similar PCB assembly offers in europe.
The 3D printer shop, [www.reprap.me] for instance, still have their own fully automated PCB assembly line, ready to go.



Then you mention TMC2130 drivers ...... and RAMPS 1.4
That is NOT a plug&play solution.

There might be RAMPS boards that are jumper-ready for TMC2130, like the RAMPS 1.6 Plus board might be, but I do not know much about that board, as the design is not (yet) open source, nor is it easy to find any details about the board.


Then I am working on a RAMPS 1.4.4 board (https://reprap.org/wiki/RAMPS_1.4.4), for a friend, that is TMC2130 jumper-ready. Meaning; change a few jumpers for driver, and all SPI pins are directly connected to the TMC2130 stepper driver. But I only meet with my friend every other Wednesday, so it will take some time before we will have the first prototype board up and running on an actual 3D printer.



So, as I hear your request, you will need a new RAMPS TMC2130 ready shield, AND you will need to have that board produced/assembled on an assembly line, where everyone involved already know what quality components and quality assembly of a PCB looks like.

Mr Alvin, May I thank you for contributing to our query!

We came across products produced by Staticboards Spain and ordered their special Ramps 1.4 board, DRV8825, and TMC2130 for trial.
The Staticboards ramps 1.4 worked seamlessly. The DRV8825 also worked seamlessly. The quality looks impeccable, however the TMC2130 behaved erratically.
When I mean erratically, i mean that if you change the Motor driver for another similar one, the machine will work with hicciups or will not work... which should not be the case once the Firmware is set. Did not bring this up with them as they seem disinterested. Staticboards informed me that they had decided since February, to discontinue 3D printer board production. Their boards, they claimed to be tested but suspect that the TMC2130 we not tested in view of their intent to close their production. Hence we are where we started. I believe that once the firmware is set, changing the driver should perform equally, unless the quality of the driver is suspect. At least that is how DRV8825 performed.

We will consider your suggestions and thank you for them.
The TMC2130 driver was wired for the sensorless homing function . There is not much to it, except that some pins have to be pinned into Aux 3. The CS pins were re routed to pins on the AUX 2 but 3 pins have still to be connected to the Display adaptor fitted partially to AUX3, and yet, have not figured out how to re-route them to pins on Aux 2 which is not populated.

We e-mailed rerprap me some days ago regarding boards of better quality but have not received any response yet.
I appreciate if you can drop us the findings of the TMC2130. We do not see any advantage of putting them to use for the Z axis and the extruders.
Again, thanks for your input.

are you still looking for a high quality manufacturer?
i mean did you manage to find one?