Working with a beastly hardware kit.

[Treak]

Recently i came across an amazing deal on a Stratasys SST printer. The problem is i have never had or used a 3d printer before and my coding experience is limited but still generally above par (or so id like to believe). I have about 2 years experience the Google Youtube 3D Printing University so my approximate knowledge of the situation is vast but unhelpful.




http://i.imgur.com/lltymrr.jpg




Problem is, they took out some of the juju that runs it. So i improvised and ordered a rambo 1.2a from amazon.




http://imgur.com/w4dbxpG




The stepper motors are 8 lead steppers with your standard 4 wires coming up for the top and the bottom coils. Even through i am able to put alot more juice in these steppers they wont be much of an upgrade from nema 17s with my setup. (if even possible)
http://imgur.com/jQBwvRK




Which leads me to my first problem my steppers dont move or even tighten when connected to the board. Which makes me beleive my 12 volt power supply is the problem (i dont have the confidence to hook up the powersupplys left in the machine)




http://i.imgur.com/SybHbad.jpg




The rambo board has repetir firmware and connected to repetir host on the computer on it (i somehow bricked it and figured outish how to re program it real fast). The next thing i want to connect is the heated chamber and lights and fans.




http://i.imgur.com/xq4eABY.jpg




Theres 4 fans total with revered plastic blower thinggies and polarity protection to make sure the air goes through properly. And 2 heated thinga ma nigs on each side of the chamber. I have a budget of about $500-800ish more dollars to make this thing put out some low quality dental floss and was thinking of wiring all the fans/heated chamber separately. So any help in pointing me in the right direction to make this thing print at least air would be greatly appreciated. There is still a lot more going on in this printer that i haven't gotten to yet. (possibly provide some inspiration for your own diy project).


All the options and do hickeys in this thing to fine tune prints are are nice and all but my first goal is to at least make the stepper motors twitch.

Some pictures my friend took of the steppers, chamber fans and max end stop for those curious.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...bbcc4b3cf6895a
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...589e52684e0f72
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...baef5b2e183b7d
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...6f23fbc059d4c2

[Treak]

http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/c...re_kit_part_2/

[bshadown]

from all i can see this is way out of our league (at least me), what else can you tell from this machine? is everything still inside? (parts) do you have the owners manual or any other reference material? how much power does it use???
i have never seen this tipe of machines, but if i can i will help

[Treak]

The power distribution unit and logic controller? are gone. There is 3 power supplies and a sbc + hard drive inside.

[truly_bent]

For starters, those LH2322-P300 stepper motors are size 23 and rated for 3A per phase while the Rambo 1.2a board is only rated for 2A. If you did try to drive these motors with that board, i'd expect fuses to pop at least. If those driver outputs were not protected (i assume they must be) you'd be letting some smoke outta the wires.

You can break the drive signals out and use stronger drivers for those motors.

[Treak]

How do you recommend i break the drive signals out to connect it to the controller? and which externally powered driver do you suggest i look into for these?

[Treak]

from all i can see this is way out of our league (at least me), what else can you tell from this machine? is everything still inside? (parts) do you have the owners manual or any other reference material? how much power does it use???
i have never seen this tipe of machines, but if i can i will help

I have the owners manual (hard copy and not really helpful unless you have a working machine) and some reference material for the parts.

[truly_bent]

I was pretty sure i'd seen reference to external stepper drivers for the Rambo board someplace. It took me a while, but i found it again, in one of Tom Sanladerer's Youtube reviews. He points out (at time 3:03) pins that can be used for external drivers in case the on-board drivers fail. You'll have to do a bit more digging, but i'm (98.7%) sure it's doable.

[3dspider]

hmm... you could drive the steppers with power mosfets, like the old dot matrix (2d) printers used to do... but it might be easier to just install new steppers.

[bshadown]

The power distribution unit and logic controller? are gone. There is 3 power supplies and a sbc + hard drive inside.

In other words you have the body but not the heart, start by checking the power rating of that beast otherwise is preaty much useless at the moment, there should be a label indicating the total amps and voltage it use, start there.

Like 3dspider said, you aré better off by using power mosfets for the steppers, trust me you dont want anything to start smoking suddenly, cheers