OneUp V2 Build Log.

[mr_intensity]

Electronics Fully Functional (almost)

Sattenger's Law:  It works better if you plug it in.

So, with my stand plank cut, my BPT down, and my X-carriage horribly crooked, it was time to move on to the grand fallacy of build night:  Getting this thing to run Repetier-Host with an actual thermocouple.

First, the old laptop (that I use as my 3D printer server) had not been used in so long that the battery died, and the BIOS settings had reset.  So it would not boot Knoppix off the flash drive.  Okay, futz with the BIOS settings...

Then, I booted, Fired up Repetier-Host, and...

Nothing.  The heater would not heat up.

Okay, I remember seeing something on Amazon's site that for the NTC 3590, one used a value of 11 for TEMP_SENSOR_0.  I did not think this was significant, as the NTC 3590 is a 100K thermistor, and 1 is the setting for a 100K thermistor.  Maybe I was wrong.

Edit configuration.h, recompile, upload to Arduino, and...

Nothing.

WTF?

So now, just to make sure SOMETHING works, I try moving the motors...

Dead.  The entire OneUp is dead.

Well, not the entire OneUp.  Repetier-Host can talk to RAMPS 1.4 just fine.  And, there is not even any error messages.  R.H. is sending commands, RAMPS is accepting them, and RAMPS reports back that everything is AOK.

   

I did not bring the resistor plug.  Maybe I could try that 997 configuration for TEMP_SENSOR_0...

Leave it to Jake (the Boy Wonder) to see the problem from the other side of the room.

"Uh, John, I'm looking at that switch that we installed on the back of your printer.  It doesn't look like it is turned on."

Uh, yeah.  <click>

Ah, there's the heater heating up.  Hey, the motors move real nice, now.  It works better when you turn it on  (which is a corollary to Sattenger's Law, quoted earlier).

   

Arduino can get its power from the USB port, so it was up and chatting away nicely with Repetier Host, and telling the RAMPS board to turn switches on and off.  The problem was:  The rest of the printer was completely dead without power, and RAMPS had no idea it was dead.

Electronics now fully functional?  Well, not quite.  One final test:  Run the extruder motor.

Could not get the thing to turn.

Finally, I swapped the extruder motor with the Z-axis motor.  This way, if I operated the Z-axis, and the extruder motor turned instead, I know the extruder motor is good.

The extruder motor *IS* good.

So, build night ends with a mystery as to why RAMPS 1.4 won't make the extruder motor go.  It's not the motor.  It's RAMPS/Repetier Host.

More to come.