Replicator 1 - Mightyboard Replacement Advice (Sailfish Compatible)

[Ooze]

Hi all,

I have been using the Replicator 1 Dual for a number of years - got a spare board from Makerbot after the 1st one tanked and applied the 'power' fix to the second board. This has also been running happily ever since. I always make use of the SD card to print and recently attempted to hookup the USB - partly to make some changes via RepG and also to get Octoprint to work on a Pi. Seems the USB aint healthy anymore and from what I have read and the tests Ive followed based on those discussions the USB aint coming back to life - seems like the Mightyboard had another wobbly.

Printing from SD still works perfectly fine and the prints are still great - so for now the world has not come to an end.

To ease my paranoia I started looking to purchase a replacement board - Makerbot seems to just wanna maker a shite load of money which led me to a few other posts suggesting clones etc. 

Would anyone on this forum have any strong opinions on the type of replacement board I should be considering - be it another original or a clone I would like to hear your views or maybe just a push in the right direction. As a minimum it has to  support the Sailfish Firmware of course.

Your assistance would be much appreciated!

Cheers

Ronnie

[Rich Webb]

The mainboard from Flashforge seems to be popular. It's based on the Mightyboard Rev E. Uses the "traditional" separate LCD character display and SD+button boards. Runs Sailfish, of course.

See this post from a few years back for caveats regarding the Rev E vs later boards. AIUI you should be okay but more info is better.

#disclaimer: I'm running a 2014-version of this board in an FFCX printer and do not have hands-on with the current gen mainboards or a Rep1. 

[Ooze]

Thanks for the info Rich - this options seems to also provide some other opportunities in terms of WiFi etc. From what I understand from Jetguy and Dan this board shouldnt be an issue as I would be introducing it to a Repl1 Dual so my understanding from the thread would be that the LCD wiring would be a match. But youre correct - I need to go do some further digging.

Any walk in shops that I could potentially purchase this in Calgary - Ill be up there end Aug......for my sins.....

Regards

Ronnie

[Alan Mclean]

A bit more work with changes to wiring but would the Ramp board not do every thing you want?

aamcle 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Jetty Firmware" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to jetty-firmwar...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Jetguy]

It would.

So here is the problem and understand there is a point in history and posting. Like all things in tech, it moves 100mph.

At the time- when Sailfish and the mightyboard was out and the Replicator was in the heyday of advancement, the Sailfish firmware and X3G protocol offered better prints and better firmware (user friendly, good UI menus, excellent known safety, and exceptional print quality). You might notice that many custom printers I built all the way from 2012 until about 2 years ago employed a mightyboard and Sailfish in every build. I could not get past that while other solutions like RAMPS and others had matured, Sailfish gave a consistent UI, unbeatable safety, and outstanding print quality.

Again, I really want you to understand, there as a point in time where RAMPS and LCD controls panels were hacked together custom code pieces. They weren't $13 on Amazon Prime.

Now, you have both Marlin and Repetier firmware web pages online, that you can tell it a certain controller board, your basic printer settings (dimensions, steps per/mm, thermistor or temp sensor, lcd option) and download a firmware.

I still believe in the 8 bit AVR world, the mightyboard and Sailfish hold a special place and provide the safety and quality not 100% in some other common 8bit solutions. In other words, I'm not calling Sailfish and Mightyboard obsolete (but also consider I was doing board doing board level repairs and have a stack of my own personal stash of repaired mightyboards and or Wanhao and Flashforge boards). Not everyone is in the situation I'm in. That said, I do not have OEM stepper drivers. I have boards, I have adapters to adapt to more common reprap style drivers.

If you need a board, PM me, I might be willing to part with one at a far more "reasonable" price. I have a very limited supply of genuine OEM Makerbot original "virgin" boards, that they did not apply the 3.3V reg mod to. I then modified them correctly for the new regulator and new 3.3v feed from 5V.

Again, I don't advertise this because it's my personal stash, but slowly I'm thinning my parts as this is becoming slowly a road less traveled, and so better to help someone in need than be in my parts bin.

[Debabrata Banerjee]

I went to Duet WIFI, and I'm not looking back. It's a giant leap over
any Arduino/8 bit board. Only hardware requirement for me was a crimp
tool. Currently it's cheaper than a replacement FlashForge board,
which is amazing.

[Rich Webb]

Definitely on my short-term to do list. I've already got a crimp tool... well, several.   ;-)

[Petr Ptacek]

You can get original FlashForge Mightyboard from Chinese FlashForge for $85 right now, 7 day shipping was under $20. Just throwing it as an option. US FlashForge prices are outright crazy.

On Monday, August 6, 2018 at 12:46:59 PM UTC-4, Debabrata Banerjee wrote: