Drivers and circuit board.

Hello,

I have been looking into 3d printing for a while now...

I want to build myself one... then with it print the parts for a better and then ultimately have a full custom sturdy Delta model.

For now I have a couple of stepped motors with rods and belt systems recovered from a couple of old printers and scanners.

Most of them have 4 or 5 wires so... I have almost all the materials at hone to make the axis and i am resourceful to do my best, align them, etc.

But this is half the job.

What can I use to drive these motors?

I do not have the electronics and the extruder assembly.

I searched a few forums and found that Megatronics V2.0 is a 'future ready' circuit board. And I see it has a lot of features.
This model is listed on eBay at $75:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RepRap-Stepp...e=STRK:MESE:IT

Or should I use this kind of thing:
for $11
http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-5-Axis-C...-/321133023129

Apart the price the only thing I can tell is that the cheaper uses a parallel port ( so i need an old computer to command it) and the Megatronics is controllable by USB.

Can I use Megatronics on usb with my Windows 8 Pc?

Will I be able to use all types of stepped motors with it? What I mean here is: Start with what I have and work myself up to some decent hi-torque Hema standard motors. (All identical and new, not scrap challenge type)

_________________

What should I get as a extruder

I prefer the whole assembly, not to buy parts and realize something is missing and I hate to print a part... because l'm stuck to filing a block of plastic to get it in shape (aka lost cause)

I have seen that many prefer 1.75mm filament because is melted faster. Is it possible to have them both?

I have also read about full metal extruders that heat better (400 d Celsius) and last longer.

And I think this is all for now...

If you need part numbers for what I have... I can post pictures and details off all motors, assemblies and parts I am planning to use.

Thank you for your patience and replies,

Serg

P.S.: I live in Paris, France so take that into consideration for parts... I liked a suggestion regarding the XYZ Printer it is at a good price... but $230 shipping and $150 duty and taxes it's a buzz-kill...

Sorry i'm not gonna be a big help for you, using several different motors together might be difficult if not impossible. You need a certain minimum torque to move your axis and a minimum steps per cycle to meet precision versus speed- demands. It might work though with some luck and a lot of work. But might i suggest buying some stock motors like reptrap compatible ones, prices of these are not exorbitantly high... As for electonics: you could also consider an arduino board with a ramps on it, you can buy them for about 80 euro's including pololu's (chinese pca's but they work ok), or do the right thing and buy the real stuff for some more. Good luck on your build, let us know how you fare!

p.s. i use 3 mm filament, no melting problems so far, but i guess the extrudermotor needs some more torque in comparison to 1.75 mm.

The heart and soul of a 3D printer are the steppers, bearings and such to create movement, and the electronics to control that movement. It would be foolish to skimp on these items. You will only give yourself frustration and heartache if you try to get anything to work with scavenged bits and pieces.

You are better off spending good money right from the start on an Arduino Mega 2560 board, a RAMPS 1.4 board and five NEMA 17 1.8 degree steppers, linear bearings and end stop switches.The electronics and stepper can stay with you as you build improved desk top printers. Once you have these, then you can scavenge the materials to build the frame, rods that the linear bearings run on, threaded rod etc. You will also have to scavenge an ATX power supply from a computer (make sure it can put out about 18A at 12V) and modify it to power your printer.

Old Man Emu

printer steppers might not have enough oomph to drive the thing, but on the other hand they might. depends on how beefy they are.

there's other electronics as well and basically all the atmel atmega based ones run the same firmwares, I wouldn't call any of them "future proof" though(since there's arm based boards coming out now). you can configure stepper amps and steps/mm per motor, but if they're too off from the 2-1 degrees / step range then you'll have to get creative with some gearing.

you might also take a look at some people selling sanguinololus, ramps and melzi boards, basically there's no performance differences between any of the atmega based boards.. and all of them run happily off the usb. you should be able to find a board + stepper drivers for 50-80 bucks + shipping. if you're doing a cartesian normal xyz printer then sanguinololu would work just fine.

that mechatronics board doesn't seem to include the stepper drivers themselves, (the empty slots on the board are where they go).. http://www.emakershop.com/browse/listing?l=991 for example is a kit of arduino mega+ ramps board + the drivers(the mechatronics is basically the ramps and the arduino mega combined into one board and some boards, like melzi iirc, include the stepper drivers on the same board too)