I currently have a Melzi v2.0 that has caught fire twice and I am wanting to upgrade to a better board since this one has melted twice since February not sure what route to go with. Any advice? Looking for a seller in the US and around $40.
Anything you get at the $40 price point is going to be just as “good” My personal recommendation is a smoothieboard (smoothieware.org 305) or an Azteegx5 X5 Mini
If you want to stick with AVR based firmware (marlin, etc) get a RAMBo.
GT2560. Like a RAMPS or RAMBO but better. Not overly powerful and decently cheap, it also supports 24V. Having done my research into others and used both that and a RAMPS, it’s my favourite.
https://www.staticboards.es/ 197 Look this ramps.
Ramps 1.4
caught fire ?? @@ how come .
I use more than a year never face that problem… but I broke the usb port today …sad
same looking for replacement now before the original prusa arrive.
Depends on what you want to spend, I usually buy the cheap ramps 1.4 roughly $3.50 from china and a arduino knock off from china roughly $5. This gives you more versatility then a rambo or melzi as you can also wire a CNC board to the ramps/Arduino combo adding another 4 stepper drivers if you ever want to do more then 2 filaments at a time. I have a diamond hot end that requires 3 extruders and this is how I run them
I have used two boards on my machines. Never had any issues.
- RAMPS 1.4 SB Premium (https://www.tindie.com/products/staticboards/ramps-14-sb-premium/?pt=ac\_prod\_search).
- Azteeg Mini Smoothieboard. (Controllers)
Have you seen Prusa’s new multiplexing add on? Pretty cool! Just hoping an open source cheap version will appear on the market soon.
Heard a lot or people talk about the smoothie board. Will my lcd connect to it or will I need to get a new one?
Did research on the board u have and it turns out that it is a knock off of the melzi and they have issues with connectors melting and starting fires. I may purchase an authentic melzi board. Gonna do some researching on the smoothie board and see if what I have now will connect right to it or if I will have to change parts out or not.
Melzi runs as a version of Sanguinololu. Thus it uses root sanguinololu files that aren’t in the Arduino IDE. These files were last updated in 2012. On top of that they’re not really expandable, you can’t add more capability to your printer.
As with everyone I’ve met with a Melzi or Anet I’d recommend upgrading to a £20 GT2560 or if that’s too steep a £10 RAMPS 1.4 from China.
Just because a printer comes with a melzi doesnt mean its low quality. I have an all aluminum X3 from Tronxy and albiet I have a few minor complaints for the most part the printer has some high quality components on it.
True, but it’s not exactly a FF Dreamer or even a Lulzbot, is it? It’s a simple Prusa build, one of the most common, basic and still very reliable ones. They aren’t demanding and you certainly don’t need a 32 bit processor, not even a 16 bit unless you really push it.
So, in the grand scheme of things, it may have excellently high quality parts but that doesn’t mean it’s not a simple one and the overall design isn’t low quality. Same as sticking a 1080P screen on a toaster doesn’t miraculously improve its quality.
To sum: it’s a simple design, not much is asked of it, no need to smoothieboard, just RAMPS or GT2560.
Send me an email and we can talk if your interested in just running the same setup. I have gt2560 rev a in stock. Online store is georges3dprinters.com 45 yeah I know the store needs work, soon… Can email me at george@georges3dprinters.com if your interested in buying and have some technical support to go with it.
Well, same kinda firmware anyways.
Impressed with that too. Also been watching to see if/when their “MK42” board becomes cloned and available at cheaper prices. Prusa Research never seem to have it in stock by itself yet due to such a demand for the whole printer.
Interesting how their open source views are becoming more “fenced in” to help sell their printers. I’d love to buy the new addons such as the new bed and the multicolour setup as separate items and add them to my own setup, but it seems for now you need to buy into the whole “Original i3” system to benefit from all of Josef’s cool upgrades and developments with the least amount of headaches and cost.
Didn’t realise the multicolour addon was £220!
