E3D (V6) (Page 2 of 6)

anybody have any info on how to fit e3d v6 on my solidoodle workbench

can tinkercad do the job, if so i will only need the dimentions of E3D-V6 to design the mount around it

So is it worth going to rumba if you can swing it, or will a printer board work fine?  I did the constant printer hacking thing with my prusa, which is awesome now, but too small.  I want this one to work from the beginning.  I'm ordering the e3d v6's in a couple of days, since my printer won't ship til the first week of april.  If no one has drawn a carriage by then, I'll take a crack at it.  I have an extra ramps 1.4 setup on hand, but rumba seems to be a step above ramps as far as forum opinions go.  Can anyone verify this for me?  Why or why isn't it better or worse?

Thanks!

I have used RAMPS and RUMBA and I think that RUMBA is better because of the multiple fan pins, 12V rail provided, and the neat wire hook up (no motor wires over other parts of the board since all plugs are on the outside.  Also, the RUMBA has pin headers and bare wire screw terminals for your motors, which is very convenience so you don't have to crimp 20+ wire leads onto their pins.  It also seems to be must more robustly constructed.

Define perform.  Motor performance will depend on your drivers more than the board.  A heater is a heater and that does not depend on the board.  The firmware flash is very straightforward, but I have never flashed to a sang. board so I can't compare.  I know the prinrboard is a pain to flash.  That being said, a RUMBA is going to be an overall much more pleasant experience than a RAMPS.  Unless you are severely limited in funds (and can't wait to save up), go RUMBA.  Genuine, direct from reprapdiscount.

Thanks again for your input guys.  So since we're talking price, the printrboard is the hands down winner for most expensive.  Is the quality worth keeping if I'm just going to flash it with marlin anyway?  It would seem to me that any 8bit board running marlin for as simple an instruction set as a printer is going to print the same as long as it doesn't melt.  Am I wrong to assume this?  I don't care about printing 500mm/sec.  I just want good quality prints consistently, which is what I'm getting now.  I'm just watching the prusa start to come apart after two years of getting hammered for 4-10 hours a day.  It's time for a tougher printer.  It stinks that the product is inconsistent with the RUMBA.  I actively cool my steppers on the prusa, which has helped a lot.  I'm guessing I'm going to have to do all of that to the WB when it arrives.  I hope it doesn't become a very expensive spare printer.  It looks like a decent printer, despite all the complaints from folks that are new to the hobby.  I didn't expect plug and play from Solidoodle.  That's only a bad thing if they didn't mean it to be that way.

The printrboard specs don't match up to a RUMBA - not sure it's the highest quality option out there, all things considered. I'll leave it up to you to choose, but there are a lot of other choices! e.g. to make it work with multiple extruders, it requires a daughter board... Not to mention the complicated firmware update procedure, as it uses a more esoteric Arduino architecture (teensy).

Partly true - any 8-bit micro based board will run the same firmware (if you so choose) and make the same decisions at the same speed. The things that set these boards apart is interface hardware: how many extruders/heaters/thermistors can it handle? Is the board design good for high-current heaters or do the traces/components choke up? If you blow a stepper driver from excessive experimentation, can you replace it? Think about this in choosing whether to replace the board on the WB.

IMO, the printrboard is a little lightweight on the extruder count and the heater capacity, and the stepper chips are soldered on so there's no scope to fiddle around with them. A theoretical RUMBA is better on all these counts (but of course not perfect either!).

Hehe mechanical engineering really is only a little bit function, and a whole lot of reliability, manufacturability, durability, etc. etc. 3D printer design on a budget doesn't make it all the way through the process I'm afraid. Glad you got some love out of it, enjoy the next one!!

Buy from a reputable source, and you'll get what you paid for. The same issue goes for any open source board. It's important with these, as things like copper weight and hardware quality makes up an important chunk of the experience of the board.

Nothing wrong with adding fans! Note that steppers are able to run quite hot (70C or so is usually OK, nothing will melt - this will feel burning hot to the touch!).

It would be hard to sell anything other than "plug and play" when the whole market is hell-bent on cleaning up with the 3d printer equivalent of the Apple II...

Just to be clear the variation in traces came from boards purchased directly from RepRapDiscount. I wouldn't buy the rumba anywhere else, as they are the OEM.

Anytime you can feed a bed heater from its own PSU via relay you will improve heat up times.  That being said the Rumba has its own separate circuit for the heat bed (HB PWR). So do your homework and understand the wattage of your heater and the max wattage that the Rumba HB circuit is rated for.  Then as long as you provide enough power your heat up times should be great.  If however, your heaters wattage is above what the Rumba is rated for then yes you'll need to use a relay.

I have a bit of reading to do on the rumba.  I scanned the wiki, but I didn't go through it all that well.  Documentation on RRD's site isn't great.  As it turns out, the ramps 1.4 kit I have came from them too, to my pretty screen will work too.  I've never used the one on the prusa, but I'll install it.  It's informational...  Thanks again for the help.  I had an idea where I was going, but you guys seem to have driven it home.  Good to know I was almost on the right path.  My wife shot me down on putting a skid steer under it.  Damn it!

You're welcome
You could measure the resistance and then apply a little Ohms Law