Repetier firmware compatible with this smart controller?

Hi,

I wonder if repetier firmware can work with this smart controller on a ramps 1.4 board. Does anybody know ?




[www.banggood.com]


Thank you,
Bart

It looks like a copy of the reprapdiscount smartcontroller, so I guess it is pin compatible with it.

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So repetier firmware can work with a rotary encoder?

That would be nice since I am planning my parts on building a new machine with all rails being THK rails and a full metal machine.

And for the interface a rotary system would be nice, but I could not find if repetier could work with it. I found everywhere that marlin does but I also read here and there that repetier is a preferred choice as firmware.

Yes, repetier supports rotary encode, keys and key matrices. For your board simply select the reprap smartcontroller (FEATURE_CONTROLLER 2) in th eonline configuration tool and everything should work.

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Nice great.

I'll have a look to configure everything

Quote
educa
So repetier firmware can work with a rotary encoder?

That would be nice since I am planning my parts on building a new machine with all rails being THK rails and a full metal machine.

And for the interface a rotary system would be nice, but I could not find if repetier could work with it. I found everywhere that marlin does but I also read here and there that repetier is a preferred choice as firmware.

I would not recommend going for an all-rail system. Getting those perfectly aligned is an extremely tedious task if your machine should print parts of an above-average size. We have tried this and with a fully-equipped machine shop... Nevertheless, feel free to prove me wrong

I will be glad to prove wrong since I allready built a laser cutter with very high precision also based completely on these thk rails. Its not tha difficule actually but you do indeed need some machining for the high precision requiered + the machine is all metal to be sturdy enough.

I'm currently busy designing parts in CAD and will have a website set up in a few days to document the whole building process (which will be open source with all cad files offered on the website, I have nothing to hide.)

I certainly don't go for the cheapest printer, but I do want to have a top class resolution on it. It has some very big differences with regular repraps.

To begin with I will need at least 9 stepper motors on the machine and possibly 11

+ it will be heated chamber and possibility to mount upto quad extruder (but prototype will get 1 extruder currently)

Exciting times ahead.

Sounds like an awesome plan.

Can you elaborate on how you managed to get the rails parallel? I mean you do need to face-mill the surfaces for mounting the rails...

Not at all. It all depends on the mounting system you use.

Its kinda difficult to explain, but I will build a complete website around the building of this machine.

[www.bigfoot3dprinter.com]

This is NOT a commercial project. My lasercutter was also called like that because it big machine capable of 48x24" material.

The new 3dprinter is calculated for aproximately 16x12 base and 16" height

Hi,

I checked your buildlog for your lasercutter - impressive work you've done! It looks like you are using aluminium extrusions. They are obviously flat. So the problem remains in the alignment.
Please correct me if I am wrong here: in the laser-cutter, there is a certain degree of tolerance allowed, i.e .small deviations of ~0.2mm of the focal point would not result in significant quality degradation. In a 3D-printer (at least FFF/FDM based), 0.2mm too high will result in your object not properly sticking to the platform... and you can't correct this with a platform calibration if both X-axes (or Y-axes) are not parallel. I am very curious on how you're planning to tackle this...

Cheers,
Andi

I really don't get your point to be honest. My lasercutter has tolerance around 0.02mm in both x, y and z.

There is no talk about play in Z.

X and y are thk rail. Z is trapezoid spindle + in the 3d printer there will be other shafts to guide too.

The only difficult thing in using thk rail is that you need to mount the rails absolutely parallel or it will never move because of the tight tolerances.

You are right that a variation of 0.2mm on the Z axis of a lasercutter still cuts nicely, but that doesn't mean lasercutters have a 0.2mm tolerance on Z

Ok, I was sloppy in my last post, sorry about that. What I meant was: if you mount the rails not absolutely parallel in 1 of 6 DOF, you may still get deviations in Z too, e.g when Y-axes are not parallel.
I tried this in a configuration similar to yours - the rails were moving nicely, but there was still some deviation in Z-axis in the X/Y-plane (measured using a z-probe). This is quite typical for large cnc-machines - misalignment is often compensated by the elasticity in the system, but it doesn't mean that you have a high precision. Did you actually measure your z-deviation (e.g. using a Z-Probe)?

The laser was probed indeed.

You have a point of course. Nobody says that this is easy, but in fact its about the same problem you have if you mount a regular reprap with the low tolerance parts used there.

The most important part of the machine design is to make sure that your XY runs absolutely coplanar with your build table.
As good as possible of course. for the rest you can always try to align the table a little, but the better the XY is aligned in the same plane orientation as your build plane which will go up and down, the less tweaking you need to do.

But I don't want to pretend that this will go automatically on my machine. It will require precision work.

The only thing I can say is that working with high precision guides will certainly not make the endresult worse then what reprap uses, because that is to be honest all the lowest precision stuff possible which is still ok enough to get a decent output quality.

I don't know the reprap project that well, but as far as I understand the reprap project is all about building a affordable 3d printer which is most hopefully self-reproducing and which uses easy to get parts. Thats a very humble cause and I will never be able to beat that.

My intention is to make 1 single machine based on the particular thk rails I have and the extrusions I can buy here locally and to try to get the best possible print quality. My machine will probably cost 3 to 4 times the price of a reprap, but that is not the problem, since I won't sell anything and am not looking for profit.


And to conclude -> I can be wrong. I'll have to be carefull to pretend that I'll make a superb 3d printer. It worked out very nicely for the lasercutter and this machine is a lot smaller so I do believe in it, but only time will tell

I also have some background in arduino coding and plain atmega low level coding, but I don't see a point in trying to make my own software there. That's why I initially came to this forum to ask something about repetier as that seems like rather well proven solution for 3dprinting.

So you are right, it will certainly not be an easy task, but thats a challenge and I'm quite confident that in the end it will work.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2014 01:38PM by educa.

I agree with many points of yours. Especially that RepRap printers need a lot of manual adjustments until they can produce decent quality output. This is mostly related to printed parts which usually do not meet tolerance specifications needed for high-precision machinery. Nevertheless the community is evolving: e.g. printed pulleys and gears are replaced with machined parts, etc. However, the concept of self-replication is then debatable...

I wish you all the luck for your 3D printer project - I hope everything works out just the way you want it (or better!)

Thank you,

I hope it too.

The purpose is a lot different then reprap. I received some samples printer by makerbot industries on their latest replicator 3d printer.

These are absolutely GREAT prints to be very honest. 0.1mm layers and very fine details.

I just don't want to spend around €2800 on a machine which you buy, plug in and use.

For that money, I'd like to make it myself (and I will probably not reach half that price) and be 100% confident that I know the whole machine. If something ever goes wrong with my lasercutter, then I can simply replace any part I want. For example I changed the 1.8° steppers for 0.45° steppers in under 30 minutes time. Almost impossible wit a machine you buy from a company.


It is mostly the challenge to do it myself.

+ makerbut replicator only does PLA well since no heated bed and they don't like to talk about the word ABS



So thank you for this discussion. You have some good points there and maybe you'll folow my buildlog on the website ( www.bigfoot3dprinter.com ). I'm currently designing all individual parts in CAD and today was the day for the full metal cold and hotend.


Kind regards,
Bart