First time builder: Need help with ramps and arduino please!

Hey everyone,

I'm building a 3d printer for the first time but I'm having some issues with the electronics.

I've connected the power supply to the Ramps board (v1.4) and it appears to work as my E3D V6 hotend fan that I connected to pins labelled D2 12V-AUX turns on. But when I plug the arduino into my mac a red LED light comes up on the arduino but my mac doesn't recognise the arduino was plugged in! I also saw some sparks on my ramps board, I don't know where it came from but the fan for the hotend still works. I looked online and my arduino has the classic symptoms of being fake. Dark blue, LED isn't green and perhaps most obviously, it says made in China in the corner!

I'm really stuck with this printer, can anybody please help?!

Can you post some pictures of your board for people to look at? Make sure things are configured correctly.

Pretty sure the D2 12V Aux is a direct line to the input voltage, so as long as you are supplying power to the board, it should work. It is the same as connecting the power supply inputs directly to the fan.

Have you installed the Arduino IDE? Which version? I believe the IDE will also install the drivers needed for your computer to recognize the Arduino when plug in via USB. I wouldn't worry too much about using an Arduino clone as most 3D printers running RAMPS use cloned boards. In most cases, there is nothing wrong with them.

Thanks for the reply.

I've attached the photos of the board.

I've downloaded the arduino software, but it still isn't recognising my mac. The red light turns on when I switch the power supply on and it turns on when i connect it to my mac without the power supply being on, but for some reason it doesn't recognise the mac. I went through the steps on the arduino website but the serial port isn't the same. I get bluetooth incoming port and bluetooth modem instead of /dev/tty.usbmodem

I think everything looks fine with your wiring, though you seem to have a lot of bare wire exposed near D8 (heated bed) and D10 (hotend). That might have been what is causing the sparks.

Unfortunately, I can't help much with a Mac. My suggestion at this point would be to separate the Arduino Mega and RAMPS boards and just try to test if the Mega is still working correctly and try connecting to it.

Make sure the cooling fins of the MOSFETS don't touch. Also the bent pins on the far side of the powerconnector must not touch.
-Olaf

Thanks for all the advice, I have been reading that the arduino mega doesnt seem to work on mac os x yosemite. I managed to get a PC with Vista, but am struggling to locate the arduino.inf flie after downloading the zip file from the site.
Also would the spraks have damaged the board? I know that perhaps the wires touching may have damaged the board, but it appears to work now with the hotend fan turning on and the LCD screen turning on.

you also had what looked like pin touching where you connect the lcd..tighten up the wires and make sure nothing is touching..prob is a clone.. true Arduino are made in Italy and have it in the left corner..i burnt mine the first time I powered up and went and bought a true Arduino from radio shack

Try to connect the arduino board without the Ramps.
Usually the arduinoIDE installation includes the USB driver. So, when you plug the arduino board to the usb port, you can see the com port number in the system/device manager.
ArduinoIDE V1.6.x also shows all available boards by name in the /tools/port submenue.

Once you get a connection ( and you have a working firmware at hand ) try to flash the Ramps_test program.
It tells you, if your boards are OK.
You can add the Ramps first, then 12V power, then one stepper driver at a time. Always switch off power when you make changes on the Ramps.

If all works well, flash the firmware
-Olaf

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2015 02:10AM by o_lampe.

Do you have a picture of your arduino? Some clones use a ch340g chip for interfacing via USB instead of the normal atmega16u2 and require a special driver in order to work.

Quote
MagicFilament
I have been reading that the arduino mega doesnt seem to work on mac os x yosemite.

This is not true, my RAMPS 1.4 board works fine with my mac running Yosemite (OSX 10.10.1).