So its been awhile since I got my Prometheus System in the mail, but as I have been rather busy, I put its installation on the back burner for a few months. Now that I’m ready to start messing around with it, I have been on the look-out for new printer boards that will allow for dual extruders (printrboard on the simple metal does not). Found a nice deal on a ramps 1.4 which came with a lot of other stuff which would be nice upgrades such as lcd screen.
Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Kuman-Printer-Controller-Stepper-Heatsink/dp/B0188ULASE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1508693129&sr=8-2&keywords=ramps+1.4
What do you think of it? the reviews seem ok, but as I don’t know a lot about electronics (not this part at least) I would like some more expert advise. Let me know what you think, thanks
Note: I would like to stick with marlin, as I’m am more comfortable with it, and I mainly use OctoPrint for printing, with cura as my slicer. If you have a better sudgestion for a board please let me know
that budget rules most of the “good boys” out - i would have suggested a duet or one of the smoothie boards (Ray’s one is very good and he is also very active around here).
ramps are good for lots of things but there are some side effects to using one - take 24V for example : you wont be able to use it with a ramps without lots of modifications (i did it once).
that rules out trinamics drivers - so you will not get a quiet printer also the heating time of bed / hot end is smaller with 24v, but thats another story. i had 2 or 3 ramps failing on me - nothing dramatic but the cheap ones use cheap connectors. one of them melted pretty badly. also i have couple of those displays that just died for no apparent reason. by no means i am trying to scare you - i am using ramps on my printer at the moment but i wouldnt go too far from home while the printer is running
i’ve only used 2 of them altough i have about 4 in my toolbag: ramps and smoothiboard. i would say over all quality of the prints is better on the smoothie than on ramps, but it is way more expensive - probably not worth the price difference. on the other hand i have heard very good things about cohesion (which uses same software as smoothieboard) and that is cheaper. Ray is very nice and active so thats another bonus if you need some help. Many people say duet is probably the best there is and based on features i would be inclined to agree with it. at the moment i have a request for an emergency budget approval to buy one of the duets but missus is more focused on the winter and baby mittens than my board
taurino i think is a better build board than ramps, but i would say if you go for ramps go for one from a good vendor. chances are you will get a better quality one. display on the 3d printer is a nice feature but after 5 minutes it is just a nice feature - not much added value unless you want to place your printer far away from a computer and maybe have it stand alone.
