Twicx's Dual E3D Direct-Drive Extruder

josh quick question you might be able to answer, I happen to have a fused mains socket at home, but I've no idea what fuse I'd need. Any suggestions?

 

Excellent! I actually think it's the same, but if I had have known you guys were selling them before I ordered, I would have gone with yourselves!! Still, it gives me something to do tonight while I have some downtime! I just have to make sure I've suitable cable to go from the socket to the PSU, then I'll wire it up in a temporary enclosure (safety first!!) and test out to see that I'm getting the correct output voltages at V+.

Thanks again Josh!

 

Ok, so before I put any mains electricity into the current scenario, I wanted to maybe get a 2nd opinion. It's the old sayings "measure twice, cut once" and "better safe than sorry" kicking in.

1. New power supply wiring
As far as mains connection goes, I have a fused mains socket with an 8A fuse in it (it was the closest to 5 I could get) but it also has a main power switch in the form of an insulated plastic push switch, all of which you can see in the image below (also showing where I'm going to mount the rumba). Before I actually put power into this, i'm going to make a VERY VERY TEMPORARY enclousre out of 2 layer of cardboard, just to hold the electronics in place till I get the printer back running, and a new proper enclosure printed. Not the safest, I know, but it's all I can do at the moment. AM I MISSING ANYTHING AT THIS STAGE??

http://oi58.tinypic.com/20qx9bq.jpg

2. RUMBA v RAMPS
I'm fairly sure that I managed to fry the old ramps board when I friend the old power supply. HOWEVER, I now have an opportunity to replace the Z motor with the new one, and wire the rumba to have everything as I wanted EXCEPT for the new E3D dual extruder. Only thing I dont know about is how to set up the new motor? is it a matter of just swapping it in?

ALSO, regarding the enclosure, I think the new PSU I have is the same/VERY similar to the one you guys sell, so I'll post up the print files for the enclosure once it's done Oh, and by the way, I seriously appreciate all the help on this. I'm inching closer, but I also get the feeling that this is going to be a serious beast of a machine once it's done!

edit:
ok, so i plugged in the old RAMPS board, and it seems to have survived. is there a way i can test it? should i just swap out the old PSU for the new one??

 

Ok, I've decided to bite the bullet and do a full swap. RAMPS has served it's purpose, and it's time to retire it. Well played, good sir. Well played.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW!

Using the dorkpunch guide I posted earlier (http://dorkpunch.blogspot.ie/2013/02/me ... mware.html) I split the window between the old RAMPS firmware and the new RUMBA firmware in arduino. The only reason i did this was to check things like where the RAMPS has the Y motor inverted, but by default, the RUMBA hasn't. Also to get the thermistor code for my existing ones, and to check things like the bed size in the firmware. I just compiled that and uploaded it to the new board, and it transfered across just fine.

The next thing is to start swapping across all the old connections (fans, motors etc) to the new board. the ONLY thing I've spotted that I'm not sure about is to do with the fans. On my old setup, there was one fan connected to the board; the one toggled in repeteir host. the other two (hot end cooling and case cooling) were just wired to one of the 12V and one of the 5V cables coming from the power supply. The ramps board has 2 fan connections and a 12v connection. So I need to just have a check to see which one is the connection for the toggled fans, and which is for the always-on fans.

this is now becoming a team effort. So does that make it the Felix 1.5 Twicx-E3D Online edition?

 

did someone say rats nest?



So I now have the board almost setup. I've managed to transfer everything across except for the two 'always on' fans, ie., the one at the hot end and the one in the case. I'm just not sure where they need to go. There is a set of pins on the rumba board beside where the fans go that are 12V + and -, so maybe there. However, I'm not putting mains into it till tomorrow, because I need to get some thermal paste for the stepper driver heat sinks. Also, repeteir host is all set up, reading both thermistors with a deviation of +0.8 degrees for between them. Not ideal, but it'll do for the moment.

Good progress today I think!

 

Thanks! got the thermal paste anyway, but it might be tuesday evening before I get to do test (and I'm anticipating some debug too) cos I just got greeted in work by a mountain of things to get through! no rest for the wicked, right?

 

well this is going to be fun!

So have power, I have fans. The motors are a mess. The heating is also a mess

Lets start with the motors.
I can move them all in the + direction, but hitting - or home and i get echos of hitting endstops?

With the heating, I think i just have the two thermistor terminals mixed up, cos when I hit heat extruder, the bed temperature gets very hot very quickly - what I used to get with the hot end. And similarly, when I hit heat bed, the extruder readout heats up about the same as it used to. No major problem, a simple fix I think.

Progress: I have movement + power. Not Progress: It doesn't work.

 

I had a look at comparing the old config.h from the RAMPS board (felix original files) vs the new one (Marlin files) and noticed that on the endstop section there's a bit about flipping logic. It seems to be relevant to the type of endstop used. i.e., with a mechanical one, it's 'off' until it's pressed. With optical ones they're 'on' until they're pressed. So the reason it wouldn't go back (i.e., the direction of the endstops) is because it was like they were permanently being hit. Makes sense.

The other big difference I noticed was at the Z feed speed. I'm assuming the feed speed relates to the measurement of how much the Z motor has to turn per mm. So I'm guessing I can probably copy that across?

 

Excellent. Thanks yet again!
I'm going to sit down tonigh and design and print the enclosure in 2 parts. One for the power supply and one for the electronics. And I'll put up the files here cos I'm nearly sure the new power supply you guys stock is the same. Might be investing in some of your t slot extruded aluminium in the near future too so I can enlarge the frame!

 

ok, still not having any luck with motors and endstops. So new idea, can I copy + paste everything from the old ramps config.h and just change the pins.h and define the motherboard as the new rumba?

 

AAAAWWWWW YEAH PROGRESS!

I now have X, Y and Z movement, COMPLETE WITH DELUXE END STOPPING ACTION!!!

...

ahem

got a bit carried away there, but it was a big moment of victory. It turns out that in the configuration_adv section, there was some funny things going on with the axis settings, but now, all is well. It's moving just like old times. So that's a MONUMENTAL leap forward in my book. Next up is a little soldering to get all the fans that are always on (the 2 case ones and the hot end cooling one - not the switchable one) all wired into the same socket, then I'll be ready for a test print. Also added good news is that the heat bed heats up MUCH quicker.

Once again at this stage, MASSIVE thanks to everyone's help. the progress is going great, and I'd be pretty lost without the help!

 

Tomorrow I'm going to set about cleaning the glass, putting springs on the bed for leveling, and getting a small test print done. If that comes out ok, I'll print the electronics case, and FINALLY print the last remaining part for the new dual extruder.