Feel free! I'll probably keep fiddling with it this weekend, but I haven't come up with a layout that I'm totally thrilled with yet. Plus, with this being only the second board I've ever laid out, I'd like to see how someone with some experience decides to do it. I'm not really in a rush to send it off for fabrication since I have too many projects and not enough money at the moment, so wheneverby TopherMan - Controllers
Sweet, thanks again. I've made another attempt at getting all the traces down. Everything's connected, in theory, but I have a godawful mess of vias and some ugly rat's nests, so I'll probably try to clean it up later. DEFINITELY not DIYable at the moment. The extra regulator is a good idea, if I can squeeze it in I may give that a try. Also, I was reading and I may try to work in a freewheelinby TopherMan - Controllers
Gaah, I've given up trying to get that link formatted correctly. Oh well. I was just checking Pololu's site, like you mentioned, and looked at my schematic again. I don't think the 10k pullups are an issue, because they're pulling up the enable pins, not the sleep/reset pins. Sleep and reset are connected directly to VCC, as in Pololu's minimal wiring diagram. Thanks again!by TopherMan - Controllers
Wow, thanks NoobMan! Lots of good advice. No, I did not realize that this layout would invert the gates. I took it from the Gen7 development thread. The inversion was mentioned a little later in the thread, but I must have missed it the first time through. The smaller gate is in there because the IRLB 8743's don't work well at 3.3V. How does the attached image look? I took this layout from bobc_by TopherMan - Controllers
I saw his post on the Smoothie forum, but it looks like he actually went with an Arduino Mega. Or, if there is an LPCXpresso version, I couldn't find it in the linked repo or any of his other public repositories.by TopherMan - Controllers
Hey all, Since I've determined I don't have the programming chops to port firmware to the Due, I'm just going to use Smoothie. I happen to have an LPCXpresso 1769 that isn't up to anything, so I've been inspired by this: . The past few days I've been messing around with KiCAD making a board for the LPCXpresso that's similar to RAMPS: . It's got slots for 5 steppers (Pololu style), 4 power MOSFETby TopherMan - Controllers
Hey Berry, Love the design! I am particularly taken with the magnets (like everyone else), and I was trying to come up with a hacky way for poor grad students without access to mills to imitate them. Do you see any immediate issue with buying a 1/2" ball-end mill bit, throwing it on my hand drill, and making cups into the hex cap screws by hand? If I go slow and steady, I'd think the hex in theby TopherMan - General
Okay, I officially have my RAMPS 2 Due converter board assembled and functioning! I stacked up all the boards and ran the RAMPS test script. All the mosfets worked properly, and the motor moved back and forth! I've tested all the motor positions and all the power outputs. Pics of it assembled attached, and you can watch it running here: Additionally, I checked the endstops. Mechanical switchesby TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
Ooops, forgot the link to nophead's blog: . Interesting reading, but probably better for someone with some serious patience with soldering, and preferably without a coffee habit. Those tiny resistors require a steady, steady hand.by TopherMan - Delta Machines
Well, I don't have Rostock, but I'm planning on building one in the next few months. Assuming you're using LM8UU's, you could give this a try: . I have cheap LM8UU's on my Prusa, and they are definitely the greatest source of noise from my printer, so I want to try out those igus bushings. The other thing that helps (at least with Cartesian bots) is a reduced acceleration setting. Also, I think tby TopherMan - Delta Machines
Yeah, I got the notification about it from element14 over the weekend. I figured I'd order one when I got home, and now they're out of stock until the end of June. I really should learn to immediately order cool new gadgets without hesitation so that I don't have to spend months feeling jealous of other people's toys. I will have to go see what the LinuxCNC people have been up to with their Beaglby TopherMan - General
There's been a lot of grumbling of porting a firmware to Due. I've recently started looking again at porting Smoothie to Due, and since this board is made to run exactly like a Due, it would be able to work. The other side could then be a server, or a slicer, or something else, all in one package, similar to how some people use a Raspberry Pi as a print server.by TopherMan - RAMPS Electronics
The advantage to many isn't technical, it's practical. Arduino is a well-known brand, and readily available. For example, when I started my 3D printing journey, I had basically no experience with microcontrollers, and reading about the Arduino and playing around with the IDE was WAY less intimidating than looking at how to build a Gen7 or burning a bootloader or compiling a toolchain or whateverby TopherMan - RAMPS Electronics
In fact, both myself and bobc have designed interface boards. Bobc's is here: (it's called RIB.brd) and mine is here: . Bob's was first, but I wanted a few extra things, so I replaced a few headers with through-hole (since the SM ones are expensive and harder to solder), and added a card reader, since the Due moved the SPI to the awkward 2x3 pin header right next to the mcu. I actually just receby TopherMan - RAMPS Electronics
What is your setting for Restart Extra Distance under Dimension? I had some prints that looked similar, and it was because my Restart Extra Distance was way too big, like .5 mm, so it would do just like you said, dump a bunch out all at once to prime the extruder after a layer change or after turning too sharp of an angle.by TopherMan - Skeinforge
Interesting. This makes more sense than using the kinematic jerk, since that would require decelerating to a full stop and then accelerating in the new direction. I think I remember reading that that method tends to result in blobs on angle changes, and curves would take forever to print. Also, I agree with what MPower says. Since it calculates all the acceleration curves and whatnot in distanceby TopherMan - Firmware - mainstream and related support
"Jerk" is actually a technical term, believe it or not. It means the rate of change of acceleration. If you remember your calculus/physics, derivative of position = speed, derivative of speed = acceleration, so derivative of acceleration = jerk. Think of it this way: if you were in a car at rest and hit the gas and held it there that's kinda-sorta like a constant acceleration move (because of howby TopherMan - Firmware - mainstream and related support
My PCB design is here, based on a similar design by bobc. The idea is that surface-mount pins on the bottom go into the Due, and surface-mount headers go on top into the RAMPS. Since the pins and headers are surface-mount, and therefore not connected, I could decide what connects to what. Most of the pins can pass right through, connecting from the RAMPS to the Due, but some of the paths needed tby TopherMan - Developers
Bobc, what approach are you using for your firmware? Adapting Teacup like you did with the LPC1114, or something else? And are you using Arduino for all the libraries, or are you using ASF? I've been trying to use ASF, but I think it's a little out of my reach. Just getting the Smoothie kernel working is beyond my ability, but it looks like Arduino already has all the IO streams implemented in aby TopherMan - Developers
Cool, thanks Bobc. I've been trying to port the mbed library, and I keep running into issues due to poor documentation. At the moment I'm working on the CMSIS, as (theoretically) I already have a CMSIS for both the mbed chips and the Due chip. Unfortunately, their setup is quite different, and NXP did a TERRIBLE job commenting what their wide variety of acronymic variables represent (like in theby TopherMan - Developers
Hey all, While I'm patiently awaiting my conversion board so I can plug RAMPS into my new Due, I'm trying to get some firmware ready. I'm really a big fan of the setup and structure of Smoothie, and I think the way the mbed libraries are set up it should be possible to port it over for SAM chips. I've read about how the mbed libraries work, and I've dug through the ASF (Atmel Software Frameworkby TopherMan - Developers
I agree with xclusive585, you should just use a RAMPS or similar for your first build. No matter how competent you are with electronics and software, it will be more challenging than you expect, and you'll want methods that have been tested already so we can answer your questions. And note that the RAMPS board heavily utilizes the 5V line in ways that would break a Due if you plugged it in. Howeby TopherMan - Reprappers
Oh, and two PSs. First, it's worth mentioning that an advantage of the Due is that it will likely have much higher stepper rates, so that you could conceivably put in the DRV8825s and set them to full 1/32nd microstepping and not run into any issues, where I suspect that would make the AVRs give up and go home. Second PS, I've sent off to get my board fabbed, and had a discussion with the Smootby TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
Jhaubold, The 5V/3.3V issues are not necessarily a stepper problem, because as Traumflug mentioned, the popular Pololus are all able to do either. The problem is that RAMPS pretty heavily utilizes the 5V line to power things such as the opto and hall endstops, as well as various pull-ups to other lines like the thermistors and the stepper enable lines. (If you check out the schematic here, everyby TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
Okay, I finished my attempt at a RAMPS to Due converter. It's here: . The changes I made were fairly small. First, I made a bunch of the headers whose signals were unaltered through-hole (planning to use 10mm lead headers like the stacking headers seen on a lot of Arduino shields), since I figured the through-hole pins would add some rigidity, and I'll be less worried about pulling off the surfacby TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
As an exercise in KiCAD, I'm working on a converter board to allow the Arduino Due to connect to RAMPS. In addition, I figured I'd add an SD card reader, since SD RAMPS has a level converter that's no longer necessary with the 3.3V Due, and since the Due moved around the MOSI/MISO ports. Attached is a screengrab of how I've wired the SD slot. I've compared it to the schematics from SD RAMPS andby TopherMan - Controllers
Yup, that was me asking about that. Since they're available I'm hoping I can get Smoothie on Due without too much blood sweat and tears. I really like how Smoothie is structured, and I think you end up with cleaner results when the code is written from the ground up for ARM rather than porting AVR code.by TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
Yeah, after a good night's sleep and a second look, I now see how it works. Sorry about the extraneous github issue. So I think I've found headers and pins that would work. Link for headers: Link for pins: I think I'm going to try my hand at making my own version, mostly for the KiCAD experience, but also to add an integrated SD reader (since the Due moved the MOSI, MISO, and SCK pins to theby TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
Bob, how's the RAMPS for Due converter board going? I'm finally getting a Due and I'm hoping to eventually use it for printing. I looked at bobc_hardware on github, and the RIB looks good (found one minor error; the pins right above 22 and 23 are still 5V, not 3.3V, I'll put it on Github). I'm pretty new to KiCAD, but I think I understand how it all works. The pins and headers are surface-mount,by TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
Well, if you want to live right on the bleeding edge, earlier today a delta option was added to the 'edge' branch of Smoothie . (For those who have not seen it, Smoothie is a very experimental ARM firmware built from scratch, rather than being a port of a pre-existing AVR firmware. See more here )by TopherMan - Firmware - mainstream and related support