Thinking of getting a smoothieboard for Printrbot Simple Metal

Controllers Smoothie
1

I am thinking of getting a smoothieboard for the Printrbot Simple Metal to replace my Printrboard. But I am having trouble finding a tutorial on how to set it up for a Printrbot (even if it is not a simple metal). I like to get all my ducks in a row before I go ahead and purchase it.

First how does the Smoothieboard compare to the RAMBo? I also read that there is a V2 and V2 Pro coming out should I wait for those?

Second I see that there are a few posts that pertain to problems with the z probe and auto leveling so I know that there are some of you that have used this board on a Printrbot. I would like to know if someone could share their experience with the board and how they set it up and what were the tricky parts. I knew that going with any other board than the printrboard the z stop sensor would be an issue so this will probably be my main area of focus.

Third is the smoothie firmware, will I need to have a costume firmware for the Printrbot Simple Metal or does the vanilla smoothieware work with the simple metal?

Imported from wikidot

2

Hey there.

The 3D printer guide ( http://smoothieware.org/3d-printer-guide ) should work for any 3D printer, including the Printrbot.

About comparing with a Rambo, they are similar boards, except for the more powerful chip and firmware on the Smoothieboard, which gives you more speed, potentially more print quality, more documentation, more features, simpler configuration, ethernet, a large community …
The one advantage I see of the Rambo, is that amongst the many many Reprap boards, it’s probably the least easy to break. Smoothie is quite sturdy, and it’s very rare that people break it, but Rambo is one step over that.

The v2 is coming, but it’s not before a long time. I wouldn’t wait.

About using the board with the printrbot’s probe, I know it’s been done, and if the forum posts are not enough to figure out how, you can probably just post your problem here when it occurs, and you’ll get help.

About firmware, everybody uses the same firmware, and people modify their configuration file to fit their specific machine.

Cheers.