Just received this, express from @Panucatt !
So this beast has so many features that I can’t even begin to get them down, most excitingly for us:
Really looking forward to getting this on a printer - will give it a full review when we do!
8th channel should be Chocolate.
I’m green with envy… They’re sold out 
table tilt?
Excuse my ignorance, but what is this for?
@Mark_D
It’s a controller for a 3D printer - it’s a little arduino based computer that controls all the motors, heaters, sensors etc.
This one is a bit special because it has double the amount of “stuff” on it that a normal one does, twice as many motor controllers, more sensor inputs, more heater outputs etc.
How much you paid for the entire kit shown in the third picture.
What kind of arduino does it use if one?
@Mike_Kelly_Mike_Make The AVR chip is on board. No seperate Arduino required.
@Mike_Kelly_Mike_Make , it looks like a ATmega 2560.
Ugh, why in the world the stupid stepper breakouts? Other than that it looks nice.
@Eric_Duprey how would you do the stepper breakouts to make them less stupid? And no, putting the stepper driver on the board is an incorrect answer.
They blow up too often in the use case for these things.
@Jasper_Janssen Allegro specifically says not to do it this way, they need a lot more copper to sink heat into under the chip. Also have you ever had one die on an integrated board? I haven’t and I’ve tortured them. Usually the ones that blow up blow up because they are on breakouts.
The design on the Azteeg is actually quite cunning in that the driver is mounted on the underside of the driver board with the cooling pad on the bottom in contact with plated vias to bring all the heat up to your heatsink. This way you get the best of both worlds.
I have blown a few by not having them rigged up to motors and was very grateful to be able to swap them out…
@Eric_Duprey , I’ve used allegro’s at work and agree with their suggestion for robust final design, but with 3d printing, the design should always be considered a prototype tat will be disassembled constantly. I’ve blown a few stepper controllers. Main causes are plugging out unplugging the motor hot, and manually moving the stages quickly, pretty much dumping voltage back into the allegro. Given my utter pathetic surface mint repair skills, I like everything modular. In terms of overheating the allegro, aside from the internal thermal cutoff, most people put small heatsinks on the allegro. Touching the heatsink is the best way to determine if you are over heating, which if your current is set correctly, should not be an issue.
Can’t order, they are out of stock let us know how you get on with it, looks great.
I could not see an LCD connection, do they allow for one?
@Joshua_Rowley But again, have you ever blown any up on an integrated board? I think the idea that these are prone to destruction in 3d printing use is a self fulfilling prophecy if it causes people to use a less robust system prone to destruction. Again, I know this is anecdotal but I’ve totally abused the drivers on integrated boards with good copper pours by totally shorting pins with solder blobs and bad wiring but never blown one on an integrated board despite blatant misuse. So I’m asking to see if anyone has ever blown up one of these stepper drivers in a properly spec integrated board or if these tend to get popped because of the bad modular design because people fear they’ll get popped because they were popped when used incorrectly in a modular design and so on.
The idea that nophead also uses and recommends melzi (the same integrated board I was involved in testing and productionalizing) and he definitely knows what he is doing is another good piece of anecdotal evidence.
I’ve killed a driver on a Melzi on my first ever machine - eMaker Huxley. This was one of the earlier 644p boards. Unsure of the copper weight on it. X axis, caused by wires working loose from screw terminals and possibly shorting against each other, or just being disconnected.
I’ve read countless posts of people repairing integrated allegro’s. I’d rather buy the drivers for $5 a pop on sale than trash a board trying to repair it
just curious … where are they made? China?
