Replicator 1 need new board

[Dave Packham]

Rep 1 working great.  need a new board to replace the original one.  anyone have a suggestion on the new/upgrade board?

[Scott Lichtsinn]

The most compatible board is going to be the FlashForge mighyboard, i have had issues getting them though and they have gone up in price.  The next one down is the CTC board, but they can be difficult to buy separate boards from them, its a heck of a language barrier to talk to them.

The one i have used in Rep 1's, i have one myself with a replaced board with about 2,000 hours on it since replacing, is the Geeetech, i know everyone on here will bash on the board, but its been rock solid for me.  It does require new stepper drivers, your best off buying the board with stepper drivers from Geeetech so you get everything all at once, the Makerbot stepper drivers will NOT work on the Geeetech board.  The connectors on the Geeetech board are the same except for a couple issues.  Your stepper motor wiring has plugs on them for the original Mighyboard, the Geeetech board has screw terminals for the stepper wires.  You have two choices, chop the plugs off all the stepper motor cables and then put the wires in the terminals, or desolder the screw terminals from the Geeetech board and desolder the connectors from the dead Mighyboard and solder them into the Geeetech, thats what i did so that i didn't have to modify the wiring.

The other problem is the Geeetech has a terminal block for the power connector instead of the 4 pin connector for the stock power supply.  Again, you can get that part from your dead board!  Just desolder the jack from the dead Mightyboard and desolder the screw terminal block from the Geeetech and solder in the original jack and now you have a compatible Mighyboard.  It will need the firmware updated, i tossed in the latest version, 7.5, and i was up and running no problem.  The Geeetech board also needs a couple mods, two components need solder blobs across them to short them, my memory is failing me and i don't have my notes in front of me, but i know back when i did this i posted on here, so the thread is on here somewhere.

[Dave Packham]

Great thanks for the info. I'll give the hee a try