Triple z motor controller with Ramps 1.4

Hi, I'm not sure if this has been considered previously and already solved (or maybe its not a good Idea), I am keen on a Voron esk printer, but I'm not keen on the price, I was thinking I can get a triple z driver controller through Ramps 1.4 board (with a couple of wires hanging off the side).

What I am thinking for the Z I would use the 2 E's and Z becomes E, but for the wiring of Z there would be 3 semi independent stepper drivers, the catch being they would have a common direction and common enable, so all 3 Z stepper drivers would share a common direction, allowing them to move independently of each other as long as its in the same direction, so the first stepper driver would be wired as per normal, then Z2 (initially wired up through an external bread board) would use the enable and direction from Z1, thus freeing up its direction to be used by Z3 as the step.

What I am after I guess is has this problem already been solved with ramps? so what I would end up with is being able to driver 6 stepper motors off a ramps. They Z wouldn't be in unison but would be confederated.

I realise there are other pinouts which could be repurposed for a stepper, but one of the advantages I see is that is does not compromise any other feature on the board, the only compromise is that all 3 Z's will move in the same direction.

This should also allow for Z tilting as long as it is one stepper at a time.

That is overly complicated..

ramps has oodles of spare IO pins, just set them up with their own step and direction pins

Adding a stepper driver just needs two io pins. step and direction, enable can be hard wired on

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2023 02:42AM by Dust.

You're right, I re-looked at it after your reply and I have aux-2 un-used and it has 8 pins available. I think I'll go for D63 -> En, D40 -> Dir and D42 -> step.

Stepper Motor Driver Expansion Board



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2023 05:16PM by Slapparoo.