Electronics #3: Setting up the first RAMPS with Klipper

This is part #3 in a list of postings on the electronics of my CEVO. The full list can be found here. The topic of this list is initial very simple setup of a RAMPS/Arduino with Klipper. Note that further steps comes in later parts and that the photographs shows my test setup, not the final wiring.

When talking about the RAMPS board, we usually means the RAMPS 1.4 , which is a quite simple board that is designed to piggyback on an Arduino Mega. Originally is was designed as an 12V board, but most boards can be used more or less directly with 24V following one of the many guides on doing this (see for example here and here). The original design was made for manual soldering, and most RAMPS boards are variations of varying quality of this, I am however going for the BIGTREETECH Ramps 1.6, which is a Chinese surface mount design - see a good review here, also read the enlightening comments below the video. I have two of these, and to my unqualified eyes they look to have quite good build quality. It is however an undocumented design, and it is not entirely clear whether they are fully 24V safe. I am betting that they are, but am not sure the fuse can handle the 300W of my bed heater, so I am not betting on that (more on that in a later part).

For Arduino Megas I just use the cheapest I could find. I have good experience with that approach using other types of Arduinos, the only problem sometimes being the USB drivers (we’ll see if I get in trouble with that here).


On the BIGTREETECH Ramps I just snap off the D1 diode, so the RAMPS does not power the Arduino, and I then stack it on the Mega. It can finally be connected to the Raspberry Pi with a standard USB cable.

I then installed Klipper on the Raspberry and on the Arduino following the standard guide.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Electronics #2: Setting up Raspberry Pi with OctoPrint

Image
This is part #2 in a list of postings on the electronics of my CEVO. The full list can be found  here . The topic of this list is setting up a Raspberry Pi with OctoPrint. Note that installation of Klipper comes in part #3 and that the photographs shows my test setup, not the final wiring. I am using an Pi 3B, that I already had. While the speed of the Arduino does not matter that much, the speed of the Pi does. This is where I will run OctoPrint, Klipper, camera, interesting plugins and other stuff, so the faster the merrier. If I was buying new I might go for an upper end Orange Pi or at least an Pi 3B+. The Pi and the Arduinoes does not need more than 2A, even if they also power some sensors, fans, and the like. I am however using an 5V 7A power supply I had lying around. I am powering the Pi through the GPIO pins 2 and 6 - that is fine in a configuration like this and with any fairly decent power supply. Installation of OctoPrint is very simple by just following the stand
Read more

Electronics #?: wiring a stepper motor

Image
This is part #? in a list of postings on the electronics of my CEVO. The full list can be found  here . The topic of this post is how to wire the stepper motor to the RAMPS. I am pretty sure most newer motors are the same, and yet I had difficulties to find a simple guide on how to do the wiring. The most referenced guide is  https://reprap.org/wiki/Stepper_wiring , and that was indeed the generic guide I used as reference. I am however quite sure you can just follow my guide below. Most DIY 3D printer uses Nema17 stepper motors like the one on the right. The one in the picture uses a 6-pin connector, a JST 2.0 PH 6-pin male connector, and that seems to be pretty much standard. This connector is generally not that common, but you can order it for example at  Aliexpress . Even though it has 6 pins, it is actually a bipolar motor with only 4 connectors, as shown in the diagram on the right. To wire the motor we need to know the wires for the A coil and for the B coil. If in dou
Read more