Retro Fitting Stratasys 3D Printer

Before I begin my spiel I'd like to preface by saying after hours of googling I found a wonderful forum with more information on one page than days and days of research have produced, only for it to be YEARS old, turns out it was this one. [forums.reprap.org] The author is trying to accomplish something similar to to my own goals.

I came into possession of a Stratasys that had been decommissioned, Perfectly functioning except they took the brains and the printer head. I have the power supply, driver board, motors etc. I have been looking into how to run the printer with an Arduino and RAMPS board but have had zero luck as for one the motors are 3A continuous with a 6A peak. Secondly they require double the pins to control them compared to a Pololu driver. I'm at a loss as to how to interface everything. I'm also not even sure what the model is, it's old enough for the configuration disk to be on a floppy disk. (it reads: P0938).

The power distribution board reads: PWB 201389-0003 REV J

Date code on the display board reads: E0205

What to I need to do to drive the motors? What hardware do I need? Is it even possible?

P.S. New to the forum, be gentle.

Welcome. Sounds like a great project can you post some images?

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Other's have brought Stratasys machines back to life using stratasys parts. Check that option before you gut it. Haveblue will probably chime in here to tell you more about it. We have two of his restored Stratasys machines at the Milwaukee Makerspace.

If you do end up gutting it, forget Arduino/RAMPS. You have a good quality industrial mechanism that is capable of producing quality prints. Get a 32 bit controller board- Smoothieboard or Duet. The time you will save in configuring and tuning alone will more than make up the difference in the cost of the boards and you'll end up with a better performing and easier to maintain machine in the end.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

... I'm rebuilding older CNC-machines and assembling/arming new ones with different available DIY-, OS- and comercial controllers.

My actual preferred electronics is based on ArduinoDue and either on a RADDS board, or interfaced to a new developed industrial quality BOB, what's compatible to RADDS, but is driven with 48V power, 24V signal levels and some more options and security measures, common or "essential" for industrial electronics.

It's no real problem to interface any type of motor-drivers, sensors or any I/O-module, if you know the right pins and treatment

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

What size are the stepper motors? Do they have part number labels on them?

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Thanks for the help, guys I'll add pictures soon.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2016 03:56PM by BAMFKaleb.

Quote
dc42
What size are the stepper motors? Do they have part number labels on them?

They are NEMA 23's

POWERMAX II
Model: M21NRFA-LNN-NS-04

2.8A bipolar series

Made by: Pacific Scientific

Quote
the_digital_dentist
Other's have brought Stratasys machines back to life using stratasys parts. Check that option before you gut it. Haveblue will probably chime in here to tell you more about it. We have two of his restored Stratasys machines at the Milwaukee Makerspace.

If you do end up gutting it, forget Arduino/RAMPS. You have a good quality industrial mechanism that is capable of producing quality prints. Get a 32 bit controller board- Smoothieboard or Duet. The time you will save in configuring and tuning alone will more than make up the difference in the cost of the boards and you'll end up with a better performing and easier to maintain machine in the end.

I'm doing this as a senior project and my main issue is driving the motors, it looks like they take double the pins compared to the NEMA 17's on my printer. (referring to the signal pins to the IC, well both actually)

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
dc42
What size are the stepper motors? Do they have part number labels on them?

They are NEMA 23's

POWERMAX II
Model: M21NRFA-LNN-NS-04

2.8A bipolar series

Made by: Pacific Scientific

A Duet WiFi should be able to drive those motors adequately. We're limiting the current in firmware to 2A peak per phase at present, but that's 71% of the rated motor current and it's quite common to run 3D printer stepper motors down to 50% of rated current. We plan to increase the current limit to around 2.4A in future firmware. The driver chips themselves are rated at 2.8A if you take the correct precautions in firmware.

The phase inductance of those motors is only 2.8mH according to the datasheet, so 24V should be sufficient voltage to the drivers.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Quote
dc42

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
dc42
What size are the stepper motors? Do they have part number labels on them?

They are NEMA 23's

POWERMAX II
Model: M21NRFA-LNN-NS-04

2.8A bipolar series

Made by: Pacific Scientific

A Duet WiFi should be able to drive those motors adequately. We're limiting the current in firmware to 2A peak per phase at present, but that's 71% of the rated motor current and it's quite common to run 3D printer stepper motors down to 50% of rated current. We plan to increase the current limit to around 2.4A in future firmware. The driver chips themselves are rated at 2.8A if you take the correct precautions in firmware.

The phase inductance of those motors is only 2.8mH according to the datasheet, so 24V should be sufficient voltage to the drivers.

Would I need just the board or should I buy peripherals? Please email me more details, As I have other questionsfor your product

m1090298@moreheadstate.edu

That Duet Wifi might be able to do it, but if you can find / buy the parts to put a stratasys controller back on the machine you'll end up with a much better overall system. The slicer software that's used with the stratasys printers is leaps and bounds above and beyond what slic3r or cura produces and you should be able to get the machine to print very accurate without all the hassle most go through with slic3r and fine tuning.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2016 09:10AM by PDBeal.

Quote
PDBeal
That Duet Wifi might be able to do it, but if you can find / buy the parts to put a stratasys controller back on the machine you'll end up with a much better overall system. The slicer software that's used with the stratasys printers is leaps and bounds above and beyond what slic3r or cura produces and you should be able to get the machine to print very accurate without all the hassle most go through with slic3r and fine tuning.

You're much better off using a new controller board that doesn't lock you into their software. If you use Stratasys's board, you won't be getting updates to firmware or to the software on the PC unless you pay them for maintenance, and since you're trying to use a decommissioned printer, they probably won't support you at any price. The decommissioned machine's board will probably require a 10 year old version of Stratasys' proprietary slicing software and Cura and Slicer are probably leaps and bounds beyond its capability.

Yes, you'll have to tune thing up yourself, but that only has to be done once, and isn't exactly brain surgery. It is not much different than tuning up any other reprap machine.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

You assumed I was offering that he purchase an old controller setup for it. That was not what I was suggesting. And the newer stratasys controllers actually run some sort of real-time linux system making it easier to hack.

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
dc42
A Duet WiFi should be able to drive those motors adequately. We're limiting the current in firmware to 2A peak per phase at present, but that's 71% of the rated motor current and it's quite common to run 3D printer stepper motors down to 50% of rated current. We plan to increase the current limit to around 2.4A in future firmware. The driver chips themselves are rated at 2.8A if you take the correct precautions in firmware.

The phase inductance of those motors is only 2.8mH according to the datasheet, so 24V should be sufficient voltage to the drivers.

Would I need just the board or should I buy peripherals? Please email me more details, As I have other questionsfor your product

I know nothing about the Stratasys printers, but here are some other considerations that come to mind:

- What sort of endstop switches does it have? If they are simple microswitches then they will be compatible. If they are optical or Hall effect sensors, then they may or may not be directly compatible with the Duet WiFi, depending on what voltage they are designed to work on. 5V optical sensors can typically be modified to work on 3.3V by changing one or two resistors.

- What voltage does the hot end heater take? If it isn't 24V, then does it use a standard size cartridge so that you can replace it?

- What voltage does the bed heater require and how much current does it draw? Is the bed heater intended to be driven directly from the controller board, or is there an SSR to switch it?

- Is the extruder drive also driven by a stepper motor?

- Does the machine still have a power supply? If so, what voltage does it provide?

- What sort of temperature sensors does it use: thermistors, thermocouples, or PT100 sensors (or something else)?

Regarding slicers, as well as free slicers such as slic3r and Cura there are commercial ones such as Simplify3D. I don't know how Simpilfy3D compares to the the Stratasys slicer.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2016 12:21PM by dc42.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Quote
dc42

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
dc42
A Duet WiFi should be able to drive those motors adequately. We're limiting the current in firmware to 2A peak per phase at present, but that's 71% of the rated motor current and it's quite common to run 3D printer stepper motors down to 50% of rated current. We plan to increase the current limit to around 2.4A in future firmware. The driver chips themselves are rated at 2.8A if you take the correct precautions in firmware.

The phase inductance of those motors is only 2.8mH according to the datasheet, so 24V should be sufficient voltage to the drivers.

Would I need just the board or should I buy peripherals? Please email me more details, As I have other questionsfor your product

I know nothing about the Stratasys printers, but here are some other considerations that come to mind:

- What sort of endstop switches does it have? If they are simple microswitches then they will be compatible. If they are optical or Hall effect sensors, then they may or may not be directly compatible with the Duet WiFi, depending on what voltage they are designed to work on. 5V optical sensors can typically be modified to work on 3.3V by changing one or two resistors.

- What voltage does the hot end heater take? If it isn't 24V, then does it use a standard size cartridge so that you can replace it?

- What voltage does the bed heater require and how much current does it draw? Is the bed heater intended to be driven directly from the controller board, or is there an SSR to switch it?

- Is the extruder drive also driven by a stepper motor?

- Does the machine still have a power supply? If so, what voltage does it provide?

- What sort of temperature sensors does it use: thermistors, thermocouples, or PT100 sensors (or something else)?

Regarding slicers, as well as free slicers such as slic3r and Cura there are commercial ones such as Simplify3D. I don't know how Simpilfy3D compares to the the Stratasys slicer.

The printer is gutted out, I'm making my own printer head it will probably be driven by a NEMA 17.

I will be getting a heated bed all of which should be plug and play based from what I gathered from the first comment about the Duet board.

The end stops are Hall effect but I'll switch them out for regular switches.

The printer still has a power supply, it supplies 24V up to 7A. There is also a small power board that takes 24V and supplies 3.3V, 5V and 12V. There is a large Power distribution board, but I shouldn't need it. I have a Prusa 3D printer, If I can get it tuned up, this chassis won't give me any issues. If the Duet does what I think it will, I should be able to use my current software (Repetier and Slic3r) pick my own heat bed, create my own extruder, and thus allow me to choose my own filament and last but not least I should be able to keep the amount of circuitry to a minimum.

My only concerns being:

1.) That the stepper motors on the printer have four sets of coils as opposed to two like on the NEMA 17's Yes I know I could throw in a couple jumpers I just worry if I jump the wrong wires I'll blow the IC's

2.) How to figure out how far one step is in distance as the motors are geared down. How do I calculate this? I assume if one step = 1.8° I just count the teeth to get my gear ratios and edit that in the software.....Maybe my real concern is if I can edit these values in the software and the values be specific to each axis.

The Hall effect endstop switches should be compatible with the Duet even if they need 5V, because they usually have open-drain outputs. They may even be 3.3v Hall switches, seeing that the PSU system provided 3.3V. If you can find a component part number on the Hall switches, we can look up the datasheet and see if they need 3.3V or 5V. Or you can just try running them form 3.3V and see if they work, and if not you can investigate further.

You won't need to use the board that produces 5V, 3.3V and 12V from the main 24V supply, unless you want to use 12V fans instead of 24V ones. The Duet produces 5V and 3.3V supplies itself.

For the stepper motors, you need to connect two pairs of coils in series. If the wire colours are standard:

Black and Orange go to one phase of the the driver output
Read and yellow go to the other phase of the driver output
Connect white/black to white/orange
Connect white/red to white/yellow

You have the right idea about how to work out the steps/mm. You will need to measure the belt tooth pitch as well. Setting the steps/mm in the Duet firmware is very easy, you just edit the M92 command in the conifg.g file on the SD card.

Your 24V 7A PSU is insufficient to power the bed heater. Your options are another 24V power supply and a 24V bed heater (or replace the existing 24V power supply by a larger one), or an AC mains voltage bed heater. How large is the bed? The AC mains option is best for really large beds, but requires more safety precautions.

For more info about connecting things to the Duet WiFi, see [duet3d.com].

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2016 03:34AM by dc42.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Quote
dc42
The Hall effect endstop switches should be compatible with the Duet even if they need 5V, because they usually have open-drain outputs. They may even be 3.3v Hall switches, seeing that the PSU system provided 3.3V. If you can find a component part number on the Hall switches, we can look up the datasheet and see if they need 3.3V or 5V. Or you can just try running them form 3.3V and see if they work, and if not you can investigate further.

You won't need to use the board that produces 5V, 3.3V and 12V from the main 24V supply, unless you want to use 12V fans instead of 24V ones. The Duet produces 5V and 3.3V supplies itself.

For the stepper motors, you need to connect two pairs of coils in series. If the wire colours are standard:

Black and Orange go to one phase of the the driver output
Read and yellow go to the other phase of the driver output
Connect white/black to white/orange
Connect white/red to white/yellow

You have the right idea about how to work out the steps/mm. You will need to measure the belt tooth pitch as well. Setting the steps/mm in the Duet firmware is very easy, you just edit the M92 command in the conifg.g file on the SD card.

Your 24V 7A PSU is insufficient to power the bed heater. Your options are another 24V power supply and a 24V bed heater (or replace the existing 24V power supply by a larger one), or an AC mains voltage bed heater. How large is the bed? The AC mains option is best for really large beds, but requires more safety precautions.

For more info about connecting things to the Duet WiFi, see [duet3d.com].

CORRECTION: Max input of the power supply is 85-250VAC@7A While Max output is 24VDC@21A I should be in the clear. The large power distribution board had transformers to power the heating units, but I'll be using the heat bed alone most likely, so I should be fine.

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
dc42
The Hall effect endstop switches should be compatible with the Duet even if they need 5V, because they usually have open-drain outputs. They may even be 3.3v Hall switches, seeing that the PSU system provided 3.3V. If you can find a component part number on the Hall switches, we can look up the datasheet and see if they need 3.3V or 5V. Or you can just try running them form 3.3V and see if they work, and if not you can investigate further.

You won't need to use the board that produces 5V, 3.3V and 12V from the main 24V supply, unless you want to use 12V fans instead of 24V ones. The Duet produces 5V and 3.3V supplies itself.

For the stepper motors, you need to connect two pairs of coils in series. If the wire colours are standard:

Black and Orange go to one phase of the the driver output
Read and yellow go to the other phase of the driver output
Connect white/black to white/orange
Connect white/red to white/yellow

You have the right idea about how to work out the steps/mm. You will need to measure the belt tooth pitch as well. Setting the steps/mm in the Duet firmware is very easy, you just edit the M92 command in the conifg.g file on the SD card.

Your 24V 7A PSU is insufficient to power the bed heater. Your options are another 24V power supply and a 24V bed heater (or replace the existing 24V power supply by a larger one), or an AC mains voltage bed heater. How large is the bed? The AC mains option is best for really large beds, but requires more safety precautions.

For more info about connecting things to the Duet WiFi, see [duet3d.com].

CORRECTION: Max input of the power supply is 85-250VAC@7A While Max output is 24VDC@21A I should be in the clear. The large power distribution board had transformers to power the heating units, but I'll be using the heat bed alone most likely, so I should be fine.

Thank you so much for eliminating the guesswork out of this!

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
dc42
The Hall effect endstop switches should be compatible with the Duet even if they need 5V, because they usually have open-drain outputs. They may even be 3.3v Hall switches, seeing that the PSU system provided 3.3V. If you can find a component part number on the Hall switches, we can look up the datasheet and see if they need 3.3V or 5V. Or you can just try running them form 3.3V and see if they work, and if not you can investigate further.

You won't need to use the board that produces 5V, 3.3V and 12V from the main 24V supply, unless you want to use 12V fans instead of 24V ones. The Duet produces 5V and 3.3V supplies itself.

For the stepper motors, you need to connect two pairs of coils in series. If the wire colours are standard:

Black and Orange go to one phase of the the driver output
Read and yellow go to the other phase of the driver output
Connect white/black to white/orange
Connect white/red to white/yellow

You have the right idea about how to work out the steps/mm. You will need to measure the belt tooth pitch as well. Setting the steps/mm in the Duet firmware is very easy, you just edit the M92 command in the conifg.g file on the SD card.

Your 24V 7A PSU is insufficient to power the bed heater. Your options are another 24V power supply and a 24V bed heater (or replace the existing 24V power supply by a larger one), or an AC mains voltage bed heater. How large is the bed? The AC mains option is best for really large beds, but requires more safety precautions.

For more info about connecting things to the Duet WiFi, see [duet3d.com].

CORRECTION: Max input of the power supply is 85-250VAC@7A While Max output is 24VDC@21A I should be in the clear. The large power distribution board had transformers to power the heating units, but I'll be using the heat bed alone most likely, so I should be fine.

Thank you so much for eliminating the guesswork out of this!

Damn I am jealous of that power supply. Haha.

Quote
n8bot

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
BAMFKaleb

Quote
dc42
The Hall effect endstop switches should be compatible with the Duet even if they need 5V, because they usually have open-drain outputs. They may even be 3.3v Hall switches, seeing that the PSU system provided 3.3V. If you can find a component part number on the Hall switches, we can look up the datasheet and see if they need 3.3V or 5V. Or you can just try running them form 3.3V and see if they work, and if not you can investigate further.

You won't need to use the board that produces 5V, 3.3V and 12V from the main 24V supply, unless you want to use 12V fans instead of 24V ones. The Duet produces 5V and 3.3V supplies itself.

For the stepper motors, you need to connect two pairs of coils in series. If the wire colours are standard:

Black and Orange go to one phase of the the driver output
Read and yellow go to the other phase of the driver output
Connect white/black to white/orange
Connect white/red to white/yellow

You have the right idea about how to work out the steps/mm. You will need to measure the belt tooth pitch as well. Setting the steps/mm in the Duet firmware is very easy, you just edit the M92 command in the conifg.g file on the SD card.

Your 24V 7A PSU is insufficient to power the bed heater. Your options are another 24V power supply and a 24V bed heater (or replace the existing 24V power supply by a larger one), or an AC mains voltage bed heater. How large is the bed? The AC mains option is best for really large beds, but requires more safety precautions.

For more info about connecting things to the Duet WiFi, see [duet3d.com].

CORRECTION: Max input of the power supply is 85-250VAC@7A While Max output is 24VDC@21A I should be in the clear. The large power distribution board had transformers to power the heating units, but I'll be using the heat bed alone most likely, so I should be fine.

Thank you so much for eliminating the guesswork out of this!

Damn I am jealous of that power supply. Haha.

Judging from your jealousy I must be well off! good to know, I think I'll still use that small board for accessories to be added once this big bayrastard is functional again. So, you know, TONS of LED's.

Quote
the_digital_dentist

Quote
PDBeal
That Duet Wifi might be able to do it, but if you can find / buy the parts to put a stratasys controller back on the machine you'll end up with a much better overall system. The slicer software that's used with the stratasys printers is leaps and bounds above and beyond what slic3r or cura produces and you should be able to get the machine to print very accurate without all the hassle most go through with slic3r and fine tuning.

You're much better off using a new controller board that doesn't lock you into their software. If you use Stratasys's board, you won't be getting updates to firmware or to the software on the PC unless you pay them for maintenance, and since you're trying to use a decommissioned printer, they probably won't support you at any price. The decommissioned machine's board will probably require a 10 year old version of Stratasys' proprietary slicing software and Cura and Slicer are probably leaps and bounds beyond its capability.

Yes, you'll have to tune thing up yourself, but that only has to be done once, and isn't exactly brain surgery. It is not much different than tuning up any other reprap machine.

Assuming he's working with a P-class machine (and it sounds like he is), he'd be able to use the latest version of the Stratasys software with it (assuming he could find a controller board and head to return the machine to original configuration. Cura and Slicer are probably better than CatalystEX (the software used for the Dimension series), but I'd wager that they're not as good as Insight (the software used for the Fortus and 'big iron' machines). Note that there are hacks to be able to use Insight with a Dimension series machine, though.

Sourcing the replacement parts is the trick - if the controller board is missing (to say nothing of the SBC and hard drive), you'd need to determine which generation electronics bay you have and find the correct controller (either the old 186 based board, or the newer Coldfire based board). And then if that controller had firmware for a different model, you'd have to flash new firmware to it. The head is even trickier to source - expect to pay a minimum of $4000 for a new one from Stratasys, if they'll even sell it. I have seen third party replacement heads from Germany on Ebay for around $1000, but I have no idea how well they work.

In the end, unless it's one of the higher end, larger volume (1200 in^3) machines of recent manufacture (and you can source the right parts on the cheap), retrofitting it with a new head and brains is probably the best route.

---

[haveblue.org]

I bought a Duet board for $150, I can build my own extruder for less than $200 I'd prefer that over paying double what I paid for my car for some parts.

we have a stratasys u print se plus..
its a piece of crap due to its closed source hardware and cost of filament. the software is horrible! its called catalyst I have version 4.4 installed.

you get only a few options for print quality all of which ensure that as much support material as possible is used.
It does not have a heated bed, it has a heated build chamber.
print beds cost $5 each.

your layer height options are .0100" inches or .0130" inches
in metric that is
0.254 mm or 0.330 mm

for infill you get 3 options low and high sparse fill and solid fill

support material options: basic, SMART and surround

oh and it gets worse!
because it prints support material where its not needed parts that have small holes in them take 6 to 10 hours in the sonic part washing station with is essentially an 11 gallon tub of lye that has to be heated, consuming tons of electricity.

here are bunch of pictures of the printers hardware, we have a dimension 1200 as well which is exactly the same as far as I can tell.

[goo.gl]

Filament must be genuine because it has a DRM chip to monitor usage so its $200 a roll + support material $200 a roll

this makes small prints extremely expensive so nobody uses the printer, its been sitting for a few years now. I fired it up and used it, was pretty disappointing.
The hardware on the other hand is pretty nice.

It uses standard stepper motors, end stops are optical. I don't think it would be that hard to gut these printers and turn them into something really nice.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2016 09:06PM by phil3d.

what really interests me about the stratasys is the way they manage the dual nozzle setup using a single stepper motor.

when the printer needs to switch material the print head moves to the back of the gantry, wipes the nozzle then moves to the right or left corner. A lever sticks out the side of the print-head which gets pushed moving the desired nozzle into position.


More info on the stepper motors seems they are NEMA 23


One Lin Engineering Model 5718M-15-09, NEMA 23, 1.8 deg unipolar stepper motor, 1.3A per phase, 173 oz-in holding torque. Resistance: 4.0 ohm per phase.The motor body is 56mm square X 55mm Deep. The shaft is 4mm diameter and is 14mm long with 8.75mm diameter tooth belt pulley (3mm pitch 10 teeth) pressed on. 6-wires 22AWG (Green, Blue, Red, Black, Yellow, White) 12" long to Panduit connector #CE156F22-8-C. Alltronics Part # 28M065, see family datasheet = 5718M-04: [www.alltronics.com]

[www.alltronics.com]

[www.palkitech.com]

[www.ebay.com]

Look what I just found!!! 132 Page thesis on Open-Source Converstion of Stratasys FDM Vantage X


[mro.massey.ac.nz]

nobody interested in sticking it to the man? ie Stratasys and ripping these bad boys apart?

I may be getting my hands on a u print that thats broken, perfect candidate for conversion as I would have a working uprint as reference

I just bought an original dimension (shdm1000). Currently spec'ing out components to retrofit. The new smoothieboard v2 pro looks promising with its beefy stepper drivers. I plan on keeping hardware stock. Leadshine makes an awesome servo driver that takes step and dir as inputs that I plan to use to control the extruder drives.

Hello, I'm made some experiments with an old Prodigy Plus....

Quote
Tangent1001
I just bought an original dimension (shdm1000). Currently spec'ing out components to retrofit. The new smoothieboard v2 pro looks promising with its beefy stepper drivers. I plan on keeping hardware stock. Leadshine makes an awesome servo driver that takes step and dir as inputs that I plan to use to control the extruder drives.

The TMC2660 drivers slated to be on smoothieboard v2 are the same ones that have been on the Duet WiFi since August last year, and on the Duet Ethernet since March this year. So there is no need to wait for smoothieboard 2 to get a board with beefier stepper drivers.

What is your reason for wanting to use servo-controlled motors for the extruders? I consider it an advantage that the extruder motor can skip steps if the nozzle becomes temporarily obstructed, rather than grind the filament up.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2017 11:53AM by dc42.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].