Hello everybody! I’ve been 3D printing at home with a Printrbot Metal for about 4 years. I mostly design and print parts for repair, jigs and specialty clamps for various projects, custom mounts, molds for making replacement rubber bumpers… Surface finish and overall aesthetics generally mean very little to me add long as what comes off the bed is strong and dimensionally accurate. The Printrboard that came with my Printrbot went haywire about a week after warranty was up and destroyed itself, the hotend and the proximity sensor for z-leveling. Printrbot only offered an older generation of the Printrboard at a 10% discount of what they were selling for as compensation for my misfortune, so I decided to not give them another dime and went with a more open solution. I’m currently using a RAMPS setup which I both love and hate. I just shipped my printer home, which is about an 8000 mile trip, and I’m sure I have a rewire/repair ahead of me when I get home, so now seems like the time to upgrade the control system. Its a standard cartesian single extruder printer. I’ve added a bed heater, and I’m definitely going to add a laser for cutting/engraving. I also have dreams of dual extrusion, but I know that’s highly unlikely to come to fruition, especially with the added cost of a 32bit board. What I love about RAMPS: 1. It’s cheap as chips. I initially used a real-deal high quality RAMPS setup, but it was destroyed in shipment here, so I got a knock-off setup that ran me $20, and that was including shipping to a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It worked fine, except when it didn’t (more on that later, but it had nothing to do with being cheapo, the authentic setup had the same problems) 2. It’s modular. I killed a stepper driver because a copper wire clipping flew across the room, into the case and shorted something in the driver I swapped it out with a spare driver and was back printing within an hour. I could upgrade those noisy cheap drivers if I want (and really need to for the extruder). 3. They’re common and flexible - firmware choice is good (I like Repetier, but am not married to it) and support is plentiful. I’ve never had to ask a question on a forum about anything RAMPS relates because a Google search *always* has the answer I need. What I hate about RAMPS: 1. Almost no positive retention for connections. Everything except power, fan, extruder, and heated bed is friction fit header pins. My printer would be singing for weeks on end until suddenly it would go crazy. Time to pull the case apart and start looking for what jiggled loose. Find it, fix it, and knock something else loose when you put it all back together. Rinse, repeat, scream. I would gladly re-terminate every motor, heater, sensor, endstop, LED and fan for a board with nice connectors on it. 2. Doesn’t support inductive leveling. The Printrboard just accepted the inductive pickup directly, no dodgy pull-up/pull-down network necessary. I don’t mind the resistor network and having to find power for the sensor, but that in combination with the craptacular friction fit connectors was just means more things to go wrong. Things I don’t like, but am willing to deal with: 1. Lack of additional outputs: another extruder, extra fans, lights, laser control etc. I know I can just add or make an extender for these PWM things but, I’m already bemoaning the additional things I have to add to make my RAMPS work and the additional work they present when troubleshooting and I would like a board that has some built in extendability. I wouldn’t pay extra for board cooling fan and LED lighting control, but laser PWM is something I definitely need, everything else is just icing. In short: I’m looking for suggestions for a board with nice connections, some PWM extendability, is upgradable/serviceable (not required, but would be nice), is semi-agnostic about firmware and won’t cost me an arm and a leg. I’m thinking around $50-$75 US? Thanks for any insight!
