Ord bot Hadron build - RepRapDiscount kit (Page 4 of 4)

Umm... sometimes it's a trade off between old school and old eyes. The first caliper I bought was of the plain variety. I found having one I am able to read has served me better than the one I couldn't. Oh well.

IronMan, thanks for the offer. I think I have the worst of it puzzled out. I tried to post a photo of how I installed the end stops, but evidently there's a trick to posting pictures that I haven't quite figured out yet.

The kit I got included end stops that are evidently specially designed for the Ord Bot. The nuts that hold the rollers are just the right distance to trigger the switch when mounted on the rails with the flat nuts that were evidently provided for another purpose (such as mounting the electronics).

I'm using a different approach to building this. I'm making a "box" for it to sit on and will be installing the electornic stuff under it instead of on it. IMO, it's one of the better designs out there, but I don't care for having hot wires inches away from the handle and I think it needs some system to give it a better purchase on Mother Earth to keep it from walking around when it's printing.

If I get the whole posting photos thing figured out, I'll try to take some pictures in case anyone else wants to play around with the idea of an alternate approach to mounting the electronic gear. In the mean time, the mailman brought me more parts today, so I'm pretty close to having what I need to put it together. The thing has been nickle and dimeing me to death on a host of misc. parts not included in the "kits".

And, yeah, I'm with you 100% on the lack of instructions. Years ago I built a racing transmission from a kit put out by B&M. While I'm a fair backyard mechanic, I'd never worked on a transmission before. That kit came with the best instruction manual I've ever seen. While there were over 200 steps, everything was laid out so that if you just followed each step in order, it'd come out perfect every time. I think of that project every time I'm faced with crummy instructions or a lack of instructions. Sheesh, how hard can it be to write up a set of instructions that any normally literate person with an IQ higher than a potato can follow without too much difficulty?! On the marketing side alone you'd think it'd be a prerequsitie just to make your product accessable to the broadest base of potential customers as possible. I don't get it. I really don't.

There are days when I'm reasonably certain the entire 3D printing industry is operated by drunks living in their mother's basement.

What board are you running?  Ramps, Rumba?

In most cases, you want the 2 leads that are read NC (normally closed) from the switch to be the wires that go to the 2 pins on the board.  Use a continuity tester on the switch to I.D. these...

I'm using RAMPS 1.4 with Marlin firmware...see the excerpt from the RepRap Wiki:

Mechanical Endstops
MechSwitches 2Wire.JPG

The recommended firmware will provide a configuration to use mechanical endstops with just two wires.
Find the area labelled "endstops" in the upper right corner of the board and for each of the X, Y, and Z pairs of pins (label should be below each set) do the following:
Connect S (top row, labelled to the left) on RAMPS to NC on the switch.
Connect GND on RAMPS to C on the switch.
Note: The latest firmware such as Marlin seems to use NO as the default pin on the switch. Otherwise you may need to invert the endstops in the firmware. You can use M119 to check your endstops status.

http://reprap.org/wiki/RAMPS_1.4

NO would be fine too, you can just check the status as indicated to see if you get a "Triggered" echo...

EDIT:  The condition cited above seems to be heavily preferred from the research I've done, but in fact, I happen to be using a NO configuration due to the pre-wired plugs that came with the switches...

Cheers!

Not an expert admittedly, but if there are only 2 pins on your board ,they are probably looking for a Signal and Ground, so personally, I would try the GND and OUT(signal) on the switches to the two pins on the board. This should give you a normally open condition.  The Vcc goes nowhere.

Some other more experienced members please correct me if I am wrong!

Well, I suppose opinions vary. It seems to me that including wiring diagrams and instructions should be a prerequisite to selling printer kits to the general public.

Let's be serious. The ONLY reason one would need to test what is essentially a simple on/off switch is ignorance. As already noted above, each pin is labeled. I wasn't sure what the labels mean, and from your response, I gather you don't either. As there are, however, quite a few people who have built these kits, there is no doubt in my mind that there are those who do not share our mutual ignorance and happen to know the answer to what is a fairly simple question.

For example, if you were to ask how to wire a light switch (something I do know how to do), I would not tell you that you don't have any business wiring a light switch if you haven't been to electrician's school. I would tell you to connect the black wires to the brass colored screws, the white wires to the black (common) screw, and the ground wire (bare copper or green) to the green screw, which is the ground.

How hard is that?!

I asked a simple question and it's starting to sound like a joke about how many whatevers does it take to screw in a lightbulb.

As near as I can figure at the moment, it's the goofy labeling and goofy terms folks sling about, such as "normally open" and "normally closed" that's throwing me off. If "gnd" means what it normally means, that pin is a ground that is not part of the circuit. The purpose of a ground is to prevent electrical shock and is included for safety reasons. Normally your ground wires would be attached to any metal parts in such a way that everything is eventually attached to that bare copper wire discussed above on light switches. The reason it's called a "ground" is because that's where it goes - into the ground. If you get a short somewhere in your appliance - any appliance - the current travels through the ground wire into the ground, instead of through you into the ground.

Assuming the above accounts for the pin labeled "gnd", which in this case happens to be the middle pin, that leaves one pin labeled "out" and one labeled "vcc". If the switch works the way switches normally do, it's dumb to label them that way and it doesn't make a speck of difference if the switch is "normally open" or "normally closed" any more than it does if the lights in your home are "normally on" or "normally off". All a switch does is turns things on or off. Polarity doesn't make any difference, so there's no sane reason to label the fool things differently on either side and it doesn't make any difference which of the two wires in the circuit go to which of the two pins on the board.

Does that about cover it?

If this is re the kits from RRD; it notes quite clearly:

There is no promise of any instructions; and it directs you to the buildlog.net forums for assistance by people far more intimate with the platform.

I did mean "you are" smart phone does it's own thing sometimes.
As far as the function of a switch goes you are correct it either opens or closes contacts. The difference Is end stop switches are momentary and also are dual function.  The center pin to either of the outer pins will do separate functions.  Of the two wires it doesn't really matter what one goes to which pin.  What does matter though is what your firmware is looking for as a trigger.  Some such as the SD's run with the switch in the closed N.C. Position.  When the switch is hit it opens the circuit.  You can run yours either way as long as you match it up with the firmware.
As far as the ground goes. You are not using ground as protection like you would with AC circuits.
This is 12 v DC Communicating to your control board in the form of 1's and 0's.
You are not using the switch to actually cut the power to the motor.

"For example, if you were to ask how to wire a light switch (something I do know how to do), I would not tell you that you don't have any business wiring a light switch if you haven't been to electrician's school. I would tell you to connect the black wires to the brass colored screws, the white wires to the black (common) screw, and the ground wire (bare copper or green) to the green screw, which is the ground."
You quoted this as something you know how to do and I believe you do and simply are confusing a common outlet's wiring for a switch.  Last I checked (for a light switch) the only wires that go to the switch are the black (line in) and the black (line out) the white is neutral and tied to each other with a wire nut.  The ground does go to the little green screw.
Way off the point though and again I'm willing to help if you'd like.
I understand what your saying about a switch being a switch it just closes a circuit. In this case you have two switches in one convenient package.  Depending on how you connect the wires you can be either turning on the light when you hit the switch or the light could always be on until you hit the switch at which point the light would go off.  Does that make sense?

+1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_(electricity)
It covers a lot, some relevant, some not, but at least clarifies that grounding has a lot of angles other than just power systems & safety, and can be quite a complicated matter!

I'm not here to help people that go around insulting others, but I'm certainly not going to let those people (you) misinform folks on a subject as dangerous as electricity.