Smoothie and ReArm for the Aluminatus

[Andrew Jepson]

So my ReArm board has arrived and I'm looking forward to trying out smoothieware and a 32 bit controller on the Aluminatus. Just wondering if there are any tips on configuring the firmware as this will be new territory for me.

[Arthur Wolf]

You should ( *must* really ) read http://smoothieware.org/3d-printer-guide

There's even information on migrating from Marlin there now.

On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 8:01 PM, Andrew Jepson <andrew...@gmail.com> wrote:

So my ReArm board has arrived and I'm looking forward to trying out smoothieware and a 32 bit controller on the Aluminatus. Just wondering if there are any tips on configuring the firmware as this will be new territory for me.

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[Frank]

I second Arthur's note..I've been working on that conversion myself. Unfortunately I'm in Florida right now and my system (with the latest updates) is in NJ. I'll post what I've got with me and more later on. It will be on word .doc format. If you can't read that let me know and I'll post on-line.
if you are working on a windows platform you'll need an editor that can handle the unix text formatting - you probably already have one - if not, gedit is good.
There are some gotcha's -- first, unless you've changed them, A1's end stops are normally open, Smoothie expects normally closed. easy to change (either Smoothie or A1 - I changed the software settings and then after confirming things worked as expected went and changed the hardware.
second. good debugging technique says change only 1 thing (or group of things) at a time. - that way you know what caused things to 'break'...:-)
third - I'm presuming your board has 5 stepper drivers. you'll need all for the 5 A1 motors. read the section on doubling stepper motors.
 http://smoothieware.org/3d-printer-guide#doubling-stepper-motor-drivers
read it a few times.. you'll need to wire the 3rd driver - gamma (Z)  to the 5th driver epsilon (E1) and may need to add pins to your board to make the connection. easier to add the pins before mounting the board even if you are going to test later on. - make sure to follow the instructions and verify you've removed all the references to the 5th driver in the software before you slave them.
fourth - figure out how you are going to handle the A1's heated bed. - unless you've already changed the kapton heater for a different kind it draws too much power for the connectors on the board to handle (i believe the big mosfets can handle more than 12 amps, but the connectors are the limit. try wiring directly to the board? - your mileage may vary) - my A1 power supply went into overload when I put in heavy duty wiring (the old wiring was getting hot - it's resistance was lowering the current draw and kept the power supply from overloading!)
if you haven't seen what I did with #45 take a look at http://www.r2-3d.media-conversions.net/printer/Trinity.Labs.A1.html

Frank Pirz
Media Conversions LLC

[Frank]

Andrew
have you made much progress converting your A1 to Smoothie?

I've put together a Marlin to Smoothie guide, inserting marlin parameters into the Smoothie-marlin document. See the attached.
Note that the Smoothie-Marlin document misses the section on Home Switch locations & Travel Limits
[yes, I know there's a disclaimer that the doc is not a substitute for studying the config files, it's just easy to put things
in the wrong place and not realize it!]

[Andrew Jepson]

Frank, unfortunately I have kinda side lined the conversion for the last little while until I can dedicate some more time to understanding exactly what I'm doing. I'd hate to get stuck half way and have the printer out of commission while I try to figure out the rest. I'll take a look at your manual, that sounds really helpful.

[Frank]

It took me a few days of making small changes, one at a time, but I've got #38 up and running on my rebuilt version of #38 using Smoothie as it's controller!
It's not been optimized, I'm getting roughly the same print times (give or take a few minutes on a 4hr print...) but at this point I'm too busy printing things
to take the time out to optimize the printing speed.
I'll post a copy of the config once I clean up some of my notes.

[Jon Bondy]

Thanks, Frank!  When the dust settles, I would like to know the pros and cons of the electronics swap...

Jon

[Andrew Jepson]

Awesome, looking forward to seeing it.