Unresolved New ramps... I hate this thing.

So from day one i have nothing but a love/hate relationship with this printer. When it works, great, rest of the time im ready to burn it.

Some history:

Basically 2 weeks after getting it (May of 2014) problems started with the heat bed.
In short:
Broken heat bed wiring
Melted connector
More broken wiring
Positive terminal for the heat bed on the Ramps overheated and fried that connector- bypassed this by placing the +wire for the bed directly to the 12v power supply.

Then for basically a year everything was going great! Then last week the heates bed quit working. I traced it back to the Negative terminal on the ramps board had gone out.

So being a little tight on cash i purchased a new ramps 1.4, drivers and arduino off ebay from a place here in the states.
I figured since i knew it was a rampa board i could just swap the drivers and arduino from the stock electronics over to the new ramps and all would be simple plug and play... Yea, how stupid a thought that was.

So, all the stepper drivers were transferred from old ramps to the new ramps. All of the jumpers were replicated on the new board to mimic the original board, then all the connections were swapped from one to the other.

Nothing else was changed.

First problem: the extruder stepper exhibits a loud buzz without moving. I was able to get this to mostly go away but it required adjusting the driver Pot. It bothered me that i even had to do this..

Sooo, off with the first dozen print attempts, all failures.

So, i delete the simplify3D machine fff and reinstall the non modified one. Much of the problems from the failed prints disappears (Weird!)

I noticed that the Y axis stepper was Ridiculously hot, so i turned down the driver pot for the Y to where it would no longer move the bed and then turned it to increase about 1/8 turn. The stepper is still Hot, but you can atleast hold onto it indefinitely now.

So, i let the printer keep funning. About 2-3 layers in (.7mm layer height) the Y axis starts shifting the print, to where by the time I stopped the print, its about 1" off from where it should be.


I am at a loss as to how something as simple as replacing a ramps board with what i would expect to be a fairly common part to keep identical can cause so many problems.

Ive got a paying job where i need my printer up and running and either A. Fix the issue with the new ramps board, B. Bypass the connector solder pad on the original ramps (if possible) or C. Order another ramps.

Does anyone have some advice to give?


Thanks,
Thomas

 

you Really do need a voltmètre to measure the Vref, it makes everything much more easier. since the ramps is open source, there are good reseller, and bad ones. I would recommend you to buy a multimeter (even a cheap one), and calibrate your Vref and if it still doesn't work, contact robo directly and ask for a ramps 1.4 without the arduino and the stepper driver board

 

I'll give that a try. Worse case, ill put the old ramps back in and print without the bed for awhile

 

All the Vrefs were set to .4v on the drivers. no change, except that with the Vref for the Z stepper, they steppers won't even move, until you set the vref to +.69 or greater

 

it's normal since it is running 2 motors so 0.8V should be enough

 

Ahh.. didn't think of that.. that solved the Z not moving.. kinda weird it would move the Z up and down until you told it to home, then it wouldn't move down, but would go up.....

 

maybe due to the speed i do not really know

 

Yea me either.. either way this "new" ramps board is getting returned and i'll just fork out the $$$ for the set from Robo. I'm running a test print now and just from swapping the new ramps in, my Z offset increased 1mm!

So much for trying to save a few bucks. haha

 

yeah.... If my ramps ever die i think i would switch to something else

 

Yup.. after this fiasco, i believe the big printer i'm building will need to get something other than a ramps and arduino... with a 20x21x30 build area, i can't afford to scrap prints due to stupid little issues like i have with the robo.

 

Thanks for the Tip!

 

Does the fastbot work with Simplify3D?

Honestly, it has a few things about it I like more than the 24v arduino power that we were going to go with

 

That would be great, thanks! We've invested into some pretty decent stuff for this big printer. CNC cut 8020 extrusions, 12 and 16mm supported linear rails, Mil6 aluminum build plate, ballscrew Z axis drives, and were going to try to use belts for the X and Y, but likely will end up with ballscrews for those if they don't produce what we are looking for. It will also have a heated build platform as well, so we don't want to deal with headaches from the electronics.