Hi,
I've become interested and are reading up about building a 3D printer. The Prusa Mendel seems to have lots of support so I'm looking at building one of these.
I'm a mechanical engineer, but have only a little knowledge about electronics. Some of the basic electronics knowledge I do have comes from my sons Robotic Kit I got him for Christmas (RoboRobo Kit 1). That has a controller board that can be programmed (via computer program) to do varous tasks. Various modules can be hooked up to the board. For example it comes with motor controllers to drive motors, LED controllers, etc that all hook up to the micropocessor boards inputs/outputs.
I understand how that works, but when I start reading about Ramps boards to run a 3D printer I get confused. What is this for when you already have an Arduino board (for example)? The x,y,z drive axes run off a motor controller plugged in, and does extruder I think? I haven't looked into temperature monitoring or controlling much - is this what that board is for?
I've had a look around but haven't seen a simple explanation to questions like this. If you can offer some insight, or point me to some relevant pages, that would be appreciated. Thanks.
