[HOWTO] Convert Da Vinci Jr to RAMPS 1.4 (Page 5 of 11)

Hey is anyone willing who has converted to Ramps and doesn't need the PCB from the stock XYZ hotend. to send me the PCB as my one seems to be acting up and not allowing my hotend to heat up.

If anyone does I would be willing to pay for the PCB & Shipping.

Many thanks
Simon

have sent you a PM , many thanks.

If you bridge that fuse/0 ohm resistor with anything but another 0 ohm resistor you risk a fire should there be another short. Fuses are there for reasons people and anyone who bridges one or tries to defeat one deserves what they get from it. There is no excuse for it. Fix it right please, or don't fix it at all people. Just be safe.

I did the ramps conversion and I've printed out good test cubes somewhat but anything else with any details just becomes a mess. I'm using cura PLA 195 degrees.. Please help with the slicer settings... I've brought the speed down to 30mms just to print the cube.

There have been many on this forum that said they just put a glob of solder over the old fuse and called it done. Not so sure *I* am the presumptuous one here.

Thanks for these great instructions!
Has anyone tried this on a da Vinci mini series printer? I think it should work too, cause there are only few differences between the jr and the mini series.
One thing I was asking myself: The stock extruder modules have this contact on the right side to determine the z-axis calibration. Is it possible to make this work with a RAMPS board? In your instruction it seems like you removed it, but theres nothing written about it.

It seems like it should be possible, but you'll of course need to make the electrical connection between the PCB and the RAMPS board somehow. I have no idea which pins on the stock ribbon cable (or what solder joints on the PCB for that matter) belong to the Z sensor.

You'll of course want to check and make sure that the voltage going to those pins is what your sensor expects -- I don't know if it's a 12v or 5v pull-up (if it's even a pull-up). Make sure to test it carefully before shorting anything.

Sorry, I don't have one handy, but I'll try to take a shot of my connector and post it here soon. The pins are laid out like this (facing the holes of the connector -- not the back where the wires go in):
YYYZZZ
XXXNNN

The pins labeled N are obviously unused (on mine there were no wires in them).

In each of the sets of three pins, it goes:

(Signal, Ground, +5v)

Same deal -- I'll try to post one soon if I can, but schematically it basically looks like this:

--- 220 Ohm --- 5v
             |
---------------- 12 kOhm --- Signal

--------------- Ground

Are you talking about the connectors for the endstops? Or do you actually mean the tool I use to do the crimping?

IIRC, that's the connector for the filament runout sensor. I never hooked mine back up (I ended up replacing my extruder anyway), and I never bothered to figure out the pinout for it. I'm not sure, but I think it's just another optical sensor -- so you'd probably have to repeat the deal with the 220 and 12k resistors in order to connect it to RAMPS as a runout sensor.

If any one else here has set up their runout sensor, would you be able to explain how you did that?

Yes. The 220 ohm is a current-limiting resistor to avoid blowing out the IR LED in the sensor. The 12k is a pull-up resistor to keep the signal line high until the sensor's line of sight is broken, causing the signal line to be dumped to ground.

It actually doesn't matter much whether the 12k is in series with the 220 ohm or not -- the 12k by itself is plenty as a pull-up resistor. However in the way I crimped the connectors, it was easier to assemble them this way.

I'll try to get some pictures taken and added to the main doc soon. I know I should have documented this bit better

Yes, the extruder will work fine without the runout sensor.

If it only moves in one direction, your endstops aren't connected properly. I've attached a picture of the shitty endstop cable I made. Don't do it as bad as me, but that works.

If your steppers jerk, you should tune the drivers. You want .5-.55v normally. Using a multimeter on the ground on power and on the screw on the driver, tune it to .5v. You need to use VERY small movements.

If you need further help, feel free to add me on skype @ striderscales

Hi and thank you for this HOWTO conversion ! It's very cool!
I wanted to ask can i replace mega+ramps1.4 with this http://www.ebay.com/itm/SainSmart-2-in- … Sw~otWeQp~ and basically follow rest of instructions from your tutorial ?

Thank you in advance!

Thank you for reply ! But it does have slots for external drivers ? Or why should they sell kits with 5x external drivers ? See "photoshopped" picture xD

And i was thinking about to buy http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Ramps-1-4-M … 4613a2a8c8 as i want heated bed too. I want to make sure this kit contains all i need for this tutorial ? Ofc i have loads of basic electronic components on my own ( resistors and cabels etc. ) as im electrical engineer.

Thank you for replies!