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Hello!

i would like to build a big printer (in meters: 2x2x2), lets say it doesn’t matter what material we use for printing. Lets say i have built the axes and the electric motors there.

Q: How can I controll the electric motors, I need a motherboard, wich one should i use (ONLY for controlling the axes)

Thank you very much :slight_smile:

you can also answer in German

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Depending on the motors you may be able to use the electronics of a reprap (an arduino and a Ramps card), but there may be more indurstial strenght boards out there, anyone ?

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There are most likely more “high profile” boards around for industrial applications, but the point I believe is that with LARGE printers only the “power electronics” needs to be upgraded. The “signal electronics”, which includes the microcontrollers and gives the “information” to the motors and that is usually based on Arduino architecture, should not be affected by the rest of the printer. For larger motors you will need more power and drivers able to handle more current, which might mean that the standard RAMPS board won’t be enough. I know there is a way to wire external drivers onto RAMPS-style driver connectors, but honestly have never tried that.

All this said supposing you are using stepper motors, which all take the same kind of control signals independently of the size. If you are using servos+encoder, then maybe you really need something different. Encoded servos seem to be really unpopular in the 3DP world and I’m not aware on the top of my head of 3rd party boards that handle those.

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For controlling a printer of that size I would sat that you should stay away from the cheap way of doing it (arduino+ramps) since this will kommit your printer significantly. For example: an arduino + ramps setup will struggle to control the printer if you want an lcd display and print with decent speeds.

Instead I would suggest you to get some kind of modern control-board with a 32 bit arm processor on it, and make sure that The stepperdrivers are removable so you can wire up real drivers that can supply you with more than 1,5 or so amps. This will be crucisl since you most likely will need to increase the size of steppers from the standard nema 17 to nema 23 or even bigger.

But the choice of electronics will probably be one of your smallest concerns if you build a printer that size…

I have just finished my big printer (slightly less than a cubic metre) so if you have any more questions I will be more than happy to help you.

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Could You please share your printers photos?

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Hello!

If you start an enquiry on my hub or provide me with an E-mail address I could provide you with some details about how my printer is built

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Just Arduino with Ramps…bigger motors bigger drivers…thats all and think about the masses you move…

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Just a word of caution on this topic… A printer that size needs to be extremely well calibrated…

Just an example: a 0.1mm offset at the base of the printer can be as much as a 20mm or more if the printer is mis-calibrated in multiple axis, offset (defect) at the top.

This means a ruined print, wasted material, etc… So personally, I really would like to discourage you from building your own UNLESS you know exactly what you are doing, have done this before, and understand the risks… Large printers are expensive for a reason…