So, I’ve been looking to building a diy reprap from scratch build. After choosing the printrbot original model, ive been woundering what the best board would be. Ive been having a list of thing it should meet, and I would hope you guys could help out.
-Usb and Sd card Usage
-3 fans capabilty
-heated bed
-4-5 stepper motor drivers. preferably 5
-under $80
Thanks! Harrison
for the very best of best it’s worth looking at:
http://smoothieware.org/
but they are just a little out of your budget range
Your budget essentially forces you out of the market for any of the newer, faster, boards. my opinion is that you should just settle on a RAMPS 1.4 and Arduino combo. The clones are super cheap (been printing on this for over 1 year no issues) and the brand name isn’t much more expensive. There are 2 common firmware solutions available and both are very well documented. The support community is huge, so if you do run into issues, it’s likely that someone already posted about it and you won’t be waiting on someone to respond in order to figure out how to fix or work around.
The low cost also allows you to budget some of the leftover cash to pick up a some extra fans to keep the board under active cooling, and a 24v power supply and a relay or SSR so you can power your bed at 24v to ensure you can print ABS, PLA and PET without bed heating issues.
