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Confused

Discussion in 'General Questions' started by Lance Weston, Mar 22, 2019.

  1. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    I am confused, I do not know where the arduino firmware resides. There is a Rasberry Pi board and a Ramps board in the Robo R2. I have firmware in the SD card plugged into the Rasberry Pi board. Is the ramps board a completely dumb board? Can I purchase a ramps boards on eBay, wire it up to the correct wires in the Robo R2 and be off and running with no firmware to modify?
     
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    No there is the RaspberryPi board and a custom control board in there. No RAMPS, no Arduino

    BUT -- that custom board is the functional equivalent to an Arduino Mega 2560 and a RAMPS 1.4 -- It uses the standard Marlin firmware with the PINS.H configured to match that board. (motherboard type is set for that board)

    So the firmware resides on that custom board. YOU CAN replace it with a mega and a ramps, but there is some rewiring to do since it uses different connectors.
     
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  3. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    This is what I was getting at earlier in the other thread... you don't have stepper drivers in there that you can actually "swap" because it is NOT a standard Arduino/RAMPS configuration. It is functionally identical, but physically it is a custom board.


    [and I have no idea what they were thinking when they made that choice. It is probably cheaper in quantity for manufacturing, but more of a hassle to work on]
     
  4. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    Okay, I think I have it straight but want to make sure. If I purchase https://www.ebay.com/itm/RAMPS-1-4-...766842?hash=item4af7310cfa:g:svkAAOSwXRxazOJ4
    it will be compatible with the custom board.
    I will only have to make sure that can switch 24v to both the extruder and bed heater and send 12v to the fans. I think the standard is only 12v. Which is no problem for the extruder but not for the bed.
     
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    No, a RAMPS alone is not enough* -- you would need an Arduino Mega 2560 (the actual computer) and then a RAMPS 1.4 (the I/O daughtercard that connects everything to the Arduino). The RAMPS 1.4 by default is 12v. You can look over here for instructions to use the RAMPS with 24v (some modifications required) https://reprap.org/wiki/RAMPS_24v

    Or you could use a different control board (like a Smoothie board or something that likes 24v) .. you are in largely uncharted territory, because while a few of us have dissected the R2/C2 -- we have not done extensive modifications yet :)



    *I see your link include both -- that would work
     
  6. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    So that is a lot of how it is different and the theory for how you could rewire it :)
    Sadly there have been no goats sacrificed and no burnt offerings made to see if that is reality.

    I mean we KNOW what the boards do, but the rewiring of connectors and power? We have not physically done yet. I will at some point because I am not using that same control board going forward. When I DO have to mess with it -- it is gone.
     
  7. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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  8. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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  9. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    You can get these at amazon and they support 24v and work as a replacement for the Arduino and the RAMPS.

    http://3daddict.com/mks-sbase-32bit-mainboard-controller/

    Any Arduno Mega 2560 is the same electrically. However they are not going to be happy at 24v so you either drop the supply voltage to 12v or switch to an entirely different board (like the MKS BASE I linked)

    Again -- you are in uncharted territory which we have discussed but no one has ventured to DO yet :)
     
  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    It is not quite as simple as just swapping the boards.
    Since the power supply is 24v and none of the classic R1 style boards (Arduino Mega, RAMPS) are happy at 24v you will need to address that by using a different board or dropping the power supply voltage. I would NOT drop the power supply voltage, things work better in printers at 24v (and one reason they changed).
     
  11. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    I intend to research these boards. For now I have asked Robo to send me another Robo board.

    Thanks for all of the help. I did not realize that the custom board just interpreted commands sent to it from the Rasberry Pi.
     
  12. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    :)
    Yep, it is just reading GCode. The R1/R1+ did the same thing it just didn't come with a Pi/OcptoPi installed.
    A lot of folks added one (me among them) so you end up with basically the same features.

    If you don't mind rewiring connectors it would not be a huge effort to rewire the connectors from the R2 for a Smoothie board or something else, just work. Everything can be traced out and you can re-land them where they need to be. Then modify the smoothie firmware to handle the printer. Again nothing rocket sciencey just labor.
     
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Like I said if my board starts acting up I will invest the effort into replacing it with a generic one, but as long as it is printing I am having a hard time motivating to mess with it :) I have too many other projects (in the middle of building a CNC router as we type).
     
  14. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    I think the best ting to do is buy the 12v boards use https://www.ebay.com/itm/2pc-15A-MO...487385?hash=item3d7dace319:g:rk4AAOSwQqZcIKoa to switch the voltage to the bed and the extruder.
     
  15. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    I do not want to modify firmware. I am hoping the boards are plug and play. I have a spare rasberry pi and steppers. I should be able to wire it together and test on the bench. I ordered the board set from ebay. I ordered a 5 amp output stepdown regulator 24->12v, and a couple of FET switch boards that will take the 12v in as a trigger and output 24v. This stuff is next to free on Ebay. I am unsure what supplies the 5v to the Rasberry Pi. I like that the stepper drivers are plug in boards. Nice thing about a printer is that you can make some nice mounting hardware.
     
  16. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Let me just clear this up then ...

    There is almost a zero percent chance of that. At a minimum the new ones will be a different motherboard type in marlin and require modifications to the configuration.h

    There is no way to rework the hardware in there significantly and not edit the firmware.

    You need to learn how to do minor work on the firmware, otherwise you really restrict what you can do with the printers.
     
  17. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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  18. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    great..... I don't know how to do that. When all of the parts come in and are wired on the bench I will be back asking for help. Used to write code, hope to be able to pick it up again.
     
  19. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    We can help
    It is not really hard :)

    The controllerboard/smoothie/arduino+ramps --> that is where the firmware runs and it must be customized for the boards and printer configuration. Not really hard, but it can seem daunting until you have to do it a time or two.
     
  20. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    And you don't need to write much code, just be able to read it. The one file you need to edit a lot (configuration.h) has a lot of good comments and is fairly easy to read.
     

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