Rescue a stalled build!!!

Hi guys,

First time poster here so be gentle!

I bought a Huxley kit back when the IndieGogo campaign was on, and I've build most of the structure of the unit and have stalled at the hot plate step (I misplaced the heat shield so stopped for a while..).

I'm not really looking forward to building the controller board so I was wondering whether there was an off-the-shelf replacement for the board with the stepper controllers. From what I can see the board itself is basically an Arduino, so can I just grab on of them and some stepper motor controllers and save myself the soldering work? A colleage mentioned to me that there are some generic Arduino + controllers you can get now that might be a better bet.

Alternatively I have a few Raspberry Pi's kicking about so I could use one of those - apparently stepper motor shields are readily available but not sure how much mucking around would be required to get it working.

Any help or guidance will be appreciated!

Cheers,

Tim

You may use a Minitronics from RepRapWorld.
Works perfectly and it's perhaps the cheapest all-in-one board. The only thing missing is the SD card capability.
I have equipped several Huxley clones with such controller and not encountered any issue. See [www.thingiverse.com] (though this mounting is somehow obsolete; currently, I'm using a 3D printed case to accommodate the controller, a 40 mm fan, the power socket, a couple of switches and a 12V regulator.)
You may also use RPi as a print server. See [www.thingiverse.com].

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2014 08:36AM by 3Dmaker4U.

You can order the current Huxley heated bed kit from us, and the Melzi electronics with the firmware for Huxley already on it, that we ship with current Huxley kits.

Ian
RepRapPro tech support

Thanks for all the input.

I was looking at the RAMPS 1.4 boards that look to be compatible with the open source printers - would one of these play nicely with the Huxley?

Cheers,

Tim

RAMPS will work as well, but not alone. You will need an Arduino Mega board, and of course the stepsticks (stepper drivers).
There are some advantages anyway:
- a powerful processor
- modular design, which means you could equip what's needed and replace what's broken

I've just found this little unit on DealExtreme:

[www.dx.com]

Has all the stuff + an LCD.