New Electronics for My 3D Printer

[Bill Arnold]

As I've worked on my laser engraver setup, I've also been doing some updates to my CNC and 3D printer.

For the 3D printer, I got the RAMPS 1.6 board, Arduino Mega, and graphical display. The original Anet A8 had Skynet firmare, which doesn't exist anymore from what I see. I downloaded the latest Marlin fw and have been going through the setup on it. So far, so good, but it's been a tedious process. Thankfully all the original Anet equipment is working OK.

My question: Before I get any deeper into the process, are there any 'gotchas' I should be aware of with the arrangement I described?

 

[Darren Wright]

Cool, Unfortunately I don't have any experience with that board (yet), I'm still running an older version of skynet on my AM8s.

I assume you're looking to add another extruder? I'd like to upgrade one of my printers to have a second extruder. I'd even look at a 3rd if they've fixed the issues with Simplify 3d supporting it.

Are you still running on the Acrylic frame? If so, I'd suggest the AM8 frame upgrade. It's made a world of difference in the quality of my prints. Not to mention I can pickup the printer and move it easily without worrying about having to recalibrate it or even level it for that matter.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Going with Marlin is the right way to do it. It's a much safer firmware than the original as it has thermal runaway protection.

One of the first things I did to my printers was to flash them with the marlin firmware instead of what came with the A8.

Just wondering what prompted getting the ramps board and switching over?

The only gotcha I can think if is in low temperatures you may have a hard time getting the printer to print, as if the thermistors are too low marlin won't let it startup. I put a little heater in my printing cabinet and use a plugin from octoprint to run a relay to turn it on.

I've also had some issues with the cooling fan coming on and triggering the thermal runaway protection, so I generally turn the fan on during the preheat. Seems to take care of the problem.

As long as marlin is working for you now, it should be good to go.

 

[Bill Arnold]

... I'm still running an older version of skynet on my AM8s.

I assume you're looking to add another extruder? ...

Are you still running on the Acrylic frame? ...

I'm still running the original Skynet on my printer as well. When I looked for an update, there is none. As I understand, Skynet is a branch of Marlin specifically to support the Anet printers.

I've thought of having a second extruder, but will proceed with caution on that.

I have the original acrylic frame, but with many updates. I mounted it on a torsion box and have had no problem with moving it.

... Just wondering what prompted getting the ramps board and switching over? ...

Most folks I've heard talk about going to ramps do it because it's a tougher alternative to the original Anet board. I added mosfets to my Anet board, so haven't had some of the problems others mentioned.


One issue I ran into when compiling the firmware is the configuration.h and configuration_adv.h I found that are supposed to be specific to ramps. I kept getting errors, so I went back to the base files in Marlin. Doing a side-by-side comparison and tweaking the Marlin file worked for me. The ramps files had very different notations for most parameters as well as headings in Chinese characters. I'm not going to connect it to my printer until I do more testing, but so far it seems to be coming along. I like the Reprap graphic display, too!

 

[Brent Dowell]

Ahhh, That sounds familiar. Been so long since I upgraded the firmware I've forgotten if skynet was the original firmware or not.

Does the ramps board have built in mosfets or are you going to keep those in your hardware setup?

I converted one of my to the AM8 at Darren's suggestion and I really like it. I would like to reconfigure the other one to be a larger format printer using a metal frame and also add some more extruders to be able to do multi color. But that project is on the back burner for a while.

 

[Bill Arnold]

... Does the ramps board have built in mosfets or are you going to keep those in your hardware setup?...

...

The ramps board has mosfets with a long heat sink covering them. Also, the bed and hot end connectors are firmly attached to the board; no plug-ins as before.

... back burner ...

Hah! . . . some of my projects are on the floor behind the stove!!!

 

[Brent Dowell]

Beefy!!!!

And room for 5 steppers? Nice...

 

[Bill Arnold]

Beefy!!!!

And room for 5 steppers? Nice...

The five driver positions are labeled X, Y, Z on one row and E0, E1 on the second row. There's one output for a hot end, so it's set up for dual extruders feeding one hot end from what I see. I know Simplify3D can define multiple extruders, but I have no idea how to use that functionality yet.