Ramps 1.4 - Marlin 1.0.2 isues

It sounds like you have a bad board. Having recently spent a good six months trying to get my printer up and running, I kid you not, I went through half a dozen el cheapo Chinese RAMPS boards from EBay and Amazon. They're junk. I suspect they're factory rejects salvaged from Chinese dumpsters and sold cheap enough to where it isn't worth bothering to return them. I finally got one from these guys that worked perfectly out of the box:

http://www.revolve3d.com/collections/ac … ment-parts

I hate over paying for anything but I learned the hard way that a good deal on junk boards isn't a good deal. From my experience, every one of these red boards is defective, so you definitely want to stay away from those.

Boards can be tested, but I don't know the process. You might contact the guy at the link I posted above as he can test boards and may be able to offer you some advice. If you want to experiment more with firmware before going the replacement route, there are some firmware builders available online. Here are some links:

http://www.repetier.com/firmware/v091/

http://marlinbuilder.robotfuzz.com/

Or, if you just want some code to look at for comparison, this guy has both hex and source code for a RAMPS set up in zip files here: http://www.punchtec.com/software/

Hope that helps.

Do you have the hot end up to temp when you are trying to test? 

Look in the console for the message "Cold extrusion prevented"

That's great! I'm sorry I evidently gave you bad advice on the first try. A couple of simple things you might try on the extruder: If you're getting movement okay on the other motors, try swapping the stepper driver board for the extruder with one of the others. If that changes what moves and what doesn't, there's a screw on the board that may need adjustment. If memory serves me correctly, it's called a potentiometer (sp?) but everyone calls it "pots" for short. I remember seeing a Wiki article on it, but I don't have a link handy. I haven't played with making that adjustment myself, but there's quite a bit of documentation available if you Google or Yahoo it. On a RAMPS board, all the "pots" screws on the stepper drivers should be facing the same way. From what I understand, it can screw things up pretty good if you install them backwards.

Hope that helps.

so i have  ive swapped out the motor to the x axis to check if there's a problem with the motor, switched the driver to check that but everything works just the extruder doesn't work when everything is connected in place... it's very frustrating, just the extruder doesn't work

it doesnt have to be accurate but to see if it works it would be great than il make it perfect later. the motor doesnt even move a little..

Hopefully someone else will jump in and offer you some help with that one as getting the firmware going was a massive struggle for me. In the way of trouble shooting, another thing you can do is hook the wires for the extruder to one of the others that is working to see if you get movement. It sounds like you already checked the motor, so that may not be super useful at this point, but it would confirm the extruder will work if it's getting power. It may be possible you have a bad board, after all. If all else fails, that might be something to consider. I had such horrible luck with those Chinese red boards that I don't trust them at all. At the same time, I'm still feeling a little guilty for suggesting a replacement when it turned out there was other stuff going on that didn't have anything to do with the board.

When I was putting my printer together, my set up was close enough to the ones Punchtec sells that I ended up swapping a few items so I could just use his code. I posted a link to his code in an earlier message and it works perfectly with my set up. If no one else offers a better suggestion, you might try scrolling through his configuration files to see how it compares to yours.

Unfortunately, my knowledge is at kind of an intermediate level where I've learned quite bit, but definitely don't know everything. One thing I do know is how absolutely maddening it is to stare at a machine that ought to be working but doesn't. The worst part is the technology is in a kind of cowboy, Wild West stage at present. There isn't anything in the way tried and true, professionally competent, step by step instructions available. Once upon a time, I built a racing transmission from a B&M kit. There were over 200 steps in the instructions and I'd never gotten down and dirty with the guts of an automatic transmission before. To this day, I've never seen a better instruction book. It was written so any normally intelligent person could follow it regardless of their experience. If you started with step one and did each step in order, everything came out perfect by the time you got to the end. There isn't anything comparable for 3D printing, which makes it tough for anyone who wasn't born knowing everything. IMO, the problem is complicated further by the fact that for all practical purposes, China is the ONLY source for 3D printer parts and their quality control is random at best. It makes troubleshooting a nightmare when you can't enjoy any level of confidence that there may be more going on than simple user error.

Just a quick thought. Is there any way you could get a copy of the firmware you were using before?

I'm surprised by this, since you have "orders of magnitude" more experience sourcing parts than me, and told me I don't know what I was talking about when I pointed out those boards are garbage. I tried to save you the hassle!

I guess some folks just prefer to learn lessons the hard way.