Converting to RAMPS from Melzi

Hi, this is my first post so I hope it is in the right place. I blew the voltage regulatoe on my P802's Melzi board and it was suggested I use a RAMPS setup as a replament. I decided to fit dual extruders. So, I bought an Arduino Mega, Ramps, 6 motor drivers and a DIV268BN as the vendor said RAMPS does not support 2 z drives and it was his reommened driver as it would supply the higher current needed for the 2 Z steppers. Once the parts had arrived I immediately spotted 2 sets of pins for the z axis stepper. What should I do? It seems to me that I din't need the big driver unit, nor am I sure how to wire it up. I am planning on putting it together with the two on board z outputs and leaving the existing extruder. One it is up and running I will then fit the dual extruders. Do I install the firmware before conneting everything up or after, and where is the best place to look for the latest firmware?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2017 09:56PM by Nick999.

The ramps board will run 2 Z stepper motors ok.
Up to you when you upload firmware, either before or after final assembly.

You can get the latest marlin firmware here
or
repetier firmware here

both work well, personally i prefer repetier.

Many thanks, I have had a look at Repetier firmware but it seems a little daunting, there are a lot more parameters. Are the values shown in the configuration menus defaults?

A lot of them are defaults, you need to obviously check things like steps/mm, enstop active high or low, homing direction.
Heated bed is 'off' by default
If you have a Z probe, new options appear when you turn on probe support.
If you decide on repetier firmware, i advise using the DEV version as i posted,


[forum.repetier.com]