I'm not sure I've mentioned how much I dislike arduino ide ?
So just in case that's slipped by you: AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's better ;-)

I ran through the repetier config process, connect the board, load the repetier.ino file and - obviously - get an error.

Apparently ide doesn't think that something in the sd card setup is right.
I can't see anything wrong, and - obviously - it won't tell me exactly what it thinks is wrong, so it won't compile or upload the bloody firmware.
sheesh.
At that point I swore copiously and gave up for the night.

I'm currently contemplating just giving up entirely and putting the thing back together with the original board and screen.
I have now modified the z-axis endstop so that it's a simple bolt screwing through a nylon locking nut, which was the only physical issue I had with the machine.
Once you screwed the bed nuts down so that the springs are really tight - it was almost impossible to adjust the end stop bolt as it used three nuts that you couldn't really get at.

Now it's just a simple hexhead bolt that goes up and down without any hassle and won't move by itself.