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unused inputs

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by motorcycleman99, Sep 14, 2016.

  1. motorcycleman99

    motorcycleman99 New Member

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    Does anyone know of any unused inputs on Robo 3d R1 that I can use for a project (software pause)?
     
    #1 motorcycleman99, Sep 14, 2016
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    There are a fair number of free ports on the RAMPS. What exactly do you need?
     
    #2 mark tomlinson, Sep 14, 2016
  3. Geof

    Geof Volunteer Moderator
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    You want it to pause at a certain height in the print ? Lcd controller allows for that
     
    #3 Geof, Sep 15, 2016
  4. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    I think he wants to pause at will during the print. I've seen printers now that come with a feature that if you loose power or unplug it that it can resume where it left off. That is really cool, but not the scope that he is looking at I believe.
     
    #4 danzca6, Sep 15, 2016
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  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    There are a number of free I/O ports on the RAMPS ... we used a couple on the DLP printer we built (servo control for the shutter as an example). If you have an R1+ those ports may not have pin headers installed (you can do that).

    Just need to know what kind of free ports you are looking for and to make sure you have an R1 (standard RAMPS) versus the R1+ (non-standard RAMPS)
     
    #5 mark tomlinson, Sep 15, 2016
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  6. daniel871

    daniel871 Well-Known Member

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    Another thing to consider is that you don't want to add too much in terms of something that may hog the resources on the printer's end of things.

    A lot of the really cool things that people have been adding to their printers (within the last six months or so) have used a Raspberry Pi 3 (and the occasional extra relay hardware when needed) with some really customized versions of Octoprint to do the actual controlling of the added features without putting any strain on the printer controller itself.
     
    #6 daniel871, Sep 15, 2016
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Good point. The Arduino Mega is pretty 'busy' at times :)
    If they had used a Due (84mhz clock versus 16mhz) it would be a piece of cake, but a lot more pricey.
    We had to resort to that in a recent project. They are harder to come by...
     
    #7 mark tomlinson, Sep 15, 2016
  8. daniel871

    daniel871 Well-Known Member

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    #8 daniel871, Sep 15, 2016
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  9. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yep. Like I said a bit pricier than a regular Mega (you can get those for <$15 all day long) but really nice if you happen to need the extra clock speed. I would say it is normally not an issue and there are some oddities about programming the Due that are worth avoiding if you don't need it. We had a need to scan some I/O ports (all of them) really quickly and decipher some encoder inputs on a number of them and that proved to be too slow with the Mega. Was fine on the Due (with some overhead to spare). Also it is 3.3 volt logic only...may or may not be an issue for some folks

    Lastly as far as the Robo is concerned I doubt you can use a RAMPS on it so a different or custom shield would be needed.
     
    #9 mark tomlinson, Sep 15, 2016
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2016
  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    P.S. I did not mean to imply they were 'hens teeth' .. .just less available and more pricey.
     
    #10 mark tomlinson, Sep 15, 2016
  11. daniel871

    daniel871 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, if you're going to go with a Due on a 3d printer then you want to get the RADDS board and some RADDS 128 stepper drivers instead of the standard RAMPS and drivers.

    More expensive build for sure, but you'll have something that can run the calculations for pretty much any maneuvering you throw at it.
     
    #11 daniel871, Sep 15, 2016
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  12. motorcycleman99

    motorcycleman99 New Member

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    My idea is to use an external Arduino that monitors the Z and E steps from the 3D controller and selects any one of 3 or more extruders based on layer height or length of filament used or maybe even randomly. The extruder stepper motor control would be selected and switched through (2) ea DPDT relays or (1) ea 4PST relay. In this way the original control signals are not modified, just switched to different extruder steppers say 1-12 or whatever. I need a pause signal that would go to an input pin on the Mega controller between extruder switches in case of different temps of filaments. I do have some rough drawings, etc. if interested.
     
    #12 motorcycleman99, Sep 15, 2016
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    So, a digital input? Or could you not just do this in GCode?
     
    #13 mark tomlinson, Sep 15, 2016
  14. motorcycleman99

    motorcycleman99 New Member

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    Yes a digital input would be better I think.
     
    #14 motorcycleman99, Sep 15, 2016
  15. motorcycleman99

    motorcycleman99 New Member

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    I could probably work around any input if a digital input is not avail.
     
    #15 motorcycleman99, Sep 15, 2016
  16. motorcycleman99

    motorcycleman99 New Member

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    Can anyone point me to place where there is a 'master list' of IO on the Robo R1+?
     
    #16 motorcycleman99, Sep 15, 2016
  17. danzca6

    danzca6 Well-Known Member

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    R1+ = Custom RAMPS Board = No documentation
     
    #17 danzca6, Sep 15, 2016
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  18. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    #18 mark tomlinson, Sep 15, 2016
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