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Re: Heater Bed not turning off - 14 years ago

Sounds like a solder bridge or maybe a cold solder joint. Look closely at all the solder joints connected to the HBP FET. And check for solder bridging between pads and traces. You might desolder and resolder the related pads just on principle. And double check that the FET is installed in the correct orientation.

by bryanandaimee - Controllers

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

I'm just about done, but I'll be gone for the next week or two so it will be a couple weeks most likely before I have an alpha design to test. Once I have tested one with toner transfer I'll try to get a milled board tested as well.

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Encouraging development 2 - Incentives - 14 years ago

I think it's too bad that the core team is not at least helping set the agenda. I think one major incentive that is missing is a clear goal. For instance it seems that the market is clearly favoring less expensive and simpler to build designs. Just look at Prusa vs. Sells Mendel, or the amazing success of printrbot. It seems to me that there would be a lot of incentive in a simple declaration of

by bryanandaimee - Developers

Re: Encouraging development 2 - Incentives - 14 years ago

I wonder a few things. 1. Have we come to a point where there are simply too many designs out there for any single one to become the next Prusa mendel? And if so do we care? If you look at linux there are so many distros out there that there is really no consensus distro. And the top distros are almost all backed by some company (Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE). Perhaps we have come to that place here a

by bryanandaimee - Developers

Re: Maybe a dumb question - 14 years ago

I think a badge system could be great idea. I would guess an achievement system like slashdot has would be pretty effective. And I think it would need to be automated as in slashdot so that it doesn't just die from admins neglecting to update it.

by bryanandaimee - General Mendel Topics

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

Hey codec, good to see another design out there. Pretty soon we'll have some good alternatives to pololu electronics. How big is that board? nophead, informative as always. Thanks terramir, I agree that is a good idea. I actually just leave my heated be on all the time while the ATX supply is on. It's not currently temperature regulated or FET controlled. It heats up to whatever the equilibrium

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: computer with serial port for printing programming etc. - 14 years ago

It lacks some of the pinouts of the normal Arduino cable, you might have to reset manually when programming, and it doesn't look like it would supply USB power to the board, but it might work for basic comms. And it's cheap enough you might as well try and let us all know. Then if it's too painfull you could just get an arduino compatible cable. If I were me I think I would get one but order an a

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

Actually I think the ATX standby line is probably a safer 5V source since you would know that the ATX supply is powered if that is on, and off when the ATX supply is off, and there would be no way to have 12V on when 5V was off. With USB you might disconnect the 5V while the ATX supply is still connected, and with current Gen7 boards that results in the control line floating to ground and the ATX

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: alternate firmware for techzone monotronics - 14 years ago

No reason to trash electronics if they'll work, here's a tutorial on getting sprinter to work with them. Basically you get rid of the thermocouple board, replace the thermocouple with a thermistor, and rewire the heater. Once you can load sprinter you can probably load any of the other firmwares, but you should probably get sprinter up and running before jumping to other firmwares.

by bryanandaimee - General

Re: computer with serial port for printing programming etc. - 14 years ago

You should be able to use any of the settings you use with USB-Serial cables. You'l need a voltage level converter like the MAX232 to do the TTL to serial voltage level conversion.

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Powering heated bed kills PSU [Gen7-1.2] - 14 years ago

Try adding a load to the 5V rail. A 50W 12V accent lighting bulb will give you a couple amps and stabilize the power supply quite a bit. That's why Gen3 has a power resistor built in. ATX supplies don't behave well if the 5V line is unloaded.

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: HELP-can I make more parts and sell them? - 14 years ago

Yes

by bryanandaimee - General

Re: Powering heated bed kills PSU [Gen7-1.2] - 14 years ago

What kind of load do you have on 5V? (Should be an amp or two)

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Extruder extrudes, but print won't work - 14 years ago

Are you running in absolute or relative coordinates? And have you matched firmware to software? Also the retract settings might be too high, but I'd check coordinate settings on firmware and software first. And there might be a need to zero your coordinates, especially the extruder, before starting a print if you are using absolute coordinates.

by bryanandaimee - Reprappers

Re: would unipolar stepper motors work with gen 7 electronics? - 14 years ago

My BOM for Gen7T is at around $37 at mouser for electronics including the toshiba drivers in single kit quantities. It gets down to around $25 in quantities of 100. Add a circuit board to that cost and you're in business. Of course Gen7T might be total crap, (Just the parts I designed of course but with time a good design should evolve. Also if you got rid of the ATX connectors and used screw t

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: S. 1,3a board & TB6560 motor driver? - 14 years ago

Yes, it is. AKA47 did some TB6560 drivers that are on separate boards here aka47.adsl24.co.uk/serendipity/index.php?/pages/stepdrv.html I'm working on a TB6560 based gen7 variant, pre alpha version can be seen here So if you want to interface with Sanguinololu specifically, the AKA47 boards are a good choice. Current version of Gen7T is not quite ready for prime time. Or if you are doing y

by bryanandaimee - Sanguino(lolu)

Re: Where to buy electronics in the US? - 14 years ago

Also Lulzbot.com is US based

by bryanandaimee - General

Re: Changing from FiveD firmware to Marlin - A few questions about configuration.h values - 14 years ago

I'm not experienced with marlin specifically but in general: 1. Low speeds don't generally cause problems, often the reverse. Comms problems are often better at low speeds. 2. Shouldn't matter much whether bed is commented out or not as long as the gcode doesn't set bed temps or wait for the bed to reach temp. 3. PID settings are not critical. Having the right settings makes your temps stabi

by bryanandaimee - Firmware - mainstream and related support

Re: Trouble with Marlin complilation......... - 14 years ago

One thing to check is the name of the folder the files are in. It needs to be the same name as the pde file (Yes it's a stupid requirement) . So probably a marlin folder containing marlin.pde and other files. So if there are version numbers or anything in the folder name you need to delete them.

by bryanandaimee - Firmware - mainstream and related support

Re: Gen7 - can't read thermistor values - 14 years ago

That might be something to think about changing. I like to watch my bed cool so I know when I can remove parts. It's not hard to reroute 5V from the atmega such that thermistors are powered whenever the chip is on. I did it on Gen7T. Seems like it might help avoid confusion too.

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Z-Axis slipping? - 14 years ago

You shouldn't need them to be snug, in fact at least the top nut needs to be free to slide or the spring is useless. The bottom nut should be underneath the x end. There should be no possibility of it sliding since it rests on the bottom nut.

by bryanandaimee - General

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

Well I'm going to blow a few in as many ways as I can think of. I'll do some testing afterwards and see if there are any consistencies in which pins short or open when the driver goes. It may be possible, but I'm guessing that while there will be some patterns there may be no definitive pin you could stick an LED on to tell you if it was bad. It may short when blown sometimes and open other time

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

Thinking more about the issue of power on / power off sequencing which seems to be more critical for the toshiba drivers, (though I guess the pololus emit smoke fairly frequently too) It seems that the main requirement is that the 12V power lag the 5V on start up and lead it on shut down. Secondarily that the enable and reset pins be low until 5V and 12V stabilize. Running off ATX supply seems to

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

Thanks to the keen insight of droftarts, I have a "working" board. It has passed the initial movement test on one axis without emitting smoke. Turns out I had neglected to set the enable pin to non inverting. I didn't notice that the logic for enable was inverted from the way the pololu drivers work. And it seems that the toshiba drivers really dislike being enabled before the motor voltage is t

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: definition of RepRap (request from a copy editor) - 14 years ago

I agree with Buback, we're not there on recycling yet, so you might want something more like rapid prototyping systems like RepRap, in which plastic filament (similar to weed wacker line) is used to produce new, useful things. That description really applies to commercial $20,000.00 systems as well though, so if you want something in there that is reprap specific you could mention that the desi

by bryanandaimee - General

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

Well I powered up a board and promptly let out the smoke. Not sure yet what's up. I'm guessing it's either my design or my build quality. So I'll be troubleshooting for the next little while. Needless to say don't build these electronics yet.

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

I guess that could work, but by the time you make a daughter board and populate it with the caps and resistors and stuff you aren't likely to have saved much. Most of the savings is in integration since the drivers all cost about the same for bare chips.

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: Gen7T or Toshiba drivers for Gen7? - 14 years ago

I don't think a plug in replacement would be doable with the through hole version of the toshiba chip. It is too long to run sideways, and turning it vertical would mean it would interfere with pins going to the socket. You could certainly do it with the SMT chip but I don't know what that would get you other than an alternative, likely as expensive or more expensive but with slightly higher cur

by bryanandaimee - Next Wave Electronics Working Group

Re: A problem with PC power supply - 14 years ago

Check for shorts. Also you need a good load on 5V to get full power out of the 12V line.

by bryanandaimee - RAMPS Electronics

Re: active torque control? - 14 years ago

So maybe there would be a place for torque control for Z. Maybe a jumper or switch that would route the enable signal to the torque control pins instead, such that for Z the enable function in firmware would actually set 100% or 20% torque.

by bryanandaimee - Developers