New to 3D printing in PDX area

[Matthew Bailey]

Hey guys,

 

I have have a hobby machine shop on the west side of Portland. If that wasnt enough, I decided to dive into the world of 3d printing.  I am in the process of setting up one of the new ORD printers from Kelling.  At this point the hardware is assembeled and I am trying to program the arduino.  I not a complete idiot, I have converted a cnc using mach 3 and have made a career out of Semiconductor robotics...but MAN...this thing will push you to your limits!

 

If anyone would is familar with arduino Marlin/Sprinter setup and RAMSP 1.4 and willing to spend a couple of hours with me I would be greatful. 

 

My home switches are all installed, the RAMPS 1.4 is prebuilt, the power supply is wired up, just need to get this arduino talking to the drivers. 

 

some of my other hobbies that might be of interest... 30 years of model aviation and full scale...i like to drink... plasma cutting or any kind of welding...crushing stuff with the press...cnc stuff...did i mention drinking?  lathes are fun. 

 

At any rate if any one wants to hangs out some night hit me up!

 

Thanks!

Matt Bailey

971-563-3344

[Tom Frisch]

Hey Matt, nice to meet ya.  I've also got a hobby machine shop, though from your photo I can tell you that mine is quite a bit less impressive.  I've been working on a reprap mendel, and now a mendel90 and have successfully programmed 2 sanguinololu/marlin motherboards.  I'm pretty sure RAMPS is similar, and I'd be happy to help you get going if I can.

Have you successfully flashed the bootloader to your atmel chip yet?  

-Tom

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Tom Frisch  /  t...@tom11.com  /  mobile: 503.473.2801  /  www.tom11.com

[Aaron Eiche]

Hi Matt!

You've come to the right place. Lots of folks here have been working
with Reprap-ish printers from all eras. I don't have any experience
with RAMPS boards (I went from Gen3 Makerbot to a Printrboard - it's
arguable that they might match up in more than one way), but I'm sure
a number of folks here do. A lot of us also have general experience
that may help.

If you share some specifics, we might be able to help.

Also - your shop is very impressive (and I'm terribly jealous), thanks
for sharing.
-Aaron

On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 5:07 PM, Matthew Bailey <ma...@logan.com> wrote:

[Tom Frisch]

I'll post my response to the list as well, to help in group troubleshooting.

I have experience w/ Sanguinololu and Gen3, so white it's not the same, they are all basically arduinos w/ external stepper drivers.

I asked Matt if he had got his bootloader loaded onto the arduino yet, as that is the first, and often hardest part.

-Tom

[Matthew Bailey]

Wow thanks for all of the quick replies!

 

I am pretty sure I have not flashed the bootloader to the atmel chip yet.  When you guys refer to boot loader do you mean the Marlin or Sprinter code? or are you refering to something else all together.  Hopefully I am not too lost at this point and in my case a bootloader that I can use could be this Marlin code.

 

This is what I have attempted to do so far, I am going to try and keep this simple:

 

1. I downloaded and installed arduino 1.0.1 on my WIN 7 machine.  When I connected the Arduino via USB, WIN7 said the Arduino did not install properly.  I went into the Windows device manager and manually pointed to a set of Arduino drivers and everything said it loaded sucessful.  I am a bit doubtful at this point but there are no more errors in the device manager.

 

2.  I have extracted the marlin code to a folder on my desktop.

 

3.  I launch Arduino on my Windows machine and select FILE OPEN 'MARLIN.PDE'

 

4.  Do I need to select my board type? ??? MEGA 2560?

 

5.  If I try to compile it I get an error compiling.  c:/users/mbailey/desktop/arduino-1.0.1-windows/arduino-1.0.1/hardware/tools/avr/bin/../lib/gcc/avr/4.3.2/../../../../avr/lib/avr6/crtm2560.o: In function `__vector_default':
(.vectors+0xb0): relocation truncated to fit: R_AVR_13_PCREL against symbol `__vector_44' defined in .text section in c:/users/mbailey/desktop/arduino-1.0.1-windows/arduino-1.0.1/hardware/tools/avr/bin/../lib/gcc/avr/4.3.2/../../../../avr/lib/avr6/crtm2560.o

 

I am really just floundering around at the moment...sorry guys if I seem like an idiot!

[Tom Frisch]

I've been using an older version of arduino because I thought v 1.0 wasn't compatible w/ Sanguinololu, not sure about RAMPS, but could be the problem.  I think I'm on v0.23

Usually you have to flash a bootloader onto an arduino- which is what allows you to program it over USB. The bootloader flash is done with a different connection- there are several to choose from.  I've got one of these: http://www.ladyada.net/make/usbtinyisp/ 

and have used it successfully several times.  One trick is you have to make sure the hardware you are uploading with is selected, and you also have to make sure the version of your IDE will support the ArduinoMEGA that is used in RAMPS.  

Once the bootloader is on there, then you can use the arduino IDE to upload the marlin or sprinter firmware to your arduino hardware.  This is done over USB and usually requires that you hit the reset button on the arduino just after the IDE says the size of the file it's about to upload.  You'll have to do this a lot as you muck with settings in configuring your printer.

Hope that helps. 

-Tom