Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

Hi everyone,
I've been stalking you all for the last few months to get a good understanding of the Rostock. I just got mine on May 31st, and now I have almost all of the mechanical stuff assembled (except the hot end and heated bed). So the first problem I've run into is that the power supply doesn't look like the one in geneb's assembly guide. Mine is a black 480 watt Logisys supply. I saw another post by a guy who bought his at the maker fair, and he has the same one I think. The manual says to twist four black and four yellow wires together for the heated bed, but all of my wires look to be about the same length and I don't know what to do. Are all of the yellow wires and all of the black wires the same?
I just don't want to screw up any of the expensive components, especially the power supply and the rambo!

Thanks in advance! I'll try to post pictures when I'm done, and I plan on being on these forums for a long time to come.

Welcome, and yes any yellow wire coming out of the power supply is 12V, all blacks are ground.

Don't worry about it - my power supply was from the Indiegogo campaign. As long as it's not bright pink and blinking, you're fine.

g.

OK another dumb question. The heated bed power wire needs to be 14 gauge according to the manual. Is 14 gauge wire included with the kit? If not, can I just twist a few wires together from the included grey cable?

It's not included, no. I would _strongly_ suggest that you hit your local Radio Shack and get some 14ga wire. I was originally going to go with 12ga, but those dorks at Ultimachine are using terminal blocks that won't take that size wire. The grey, four conductor wire is just for feeding the hot end and extending the stepper motor wires for the extruder.

g.

geneb wrote:those dorks at Ultimachine are using terminal blocks that won't take that size wire. T

I use these on phoenix connectors a lot. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2103509 If you remove the plastic ferrule, crimp them, add a touch of solder, and heat shrink them, it's a nice clean way to make larger gauge wires fit in small connectors.

It's still going to a circuit trace that's 20 AWG or smaller though

Hey I just noticed that on some of the laser engraved parts, the engraved lines are cut more than half way through the melamine. It looks like they were vector cut instead of rastered. Are they supposed to be like that? It seems like such deep cuts would seriously mess with the strength of the melamine...I'm assuming all of the engraved stuff goes to the same depth.

The only parts I see it on are the arm plates, but that's because those are the only engraved lines that go all of the way to the edge of the piece. It might explain why I couldn't pop out any of the countersink holes though.

Can anybody tell me how to get the heated bed wires through the Z axis slot? The 14 gauge wire doesn't bend very much and the snowflake spacer plate covers the slot. -NEVERMIND, I got it.

Thanks!

I just finished building it (except the control panel mount), and I plugged it in and got it set up with the ports and stuff. I can monitor the temperature of the heated be and hot end, but nothing else seems to do anything. I can't move the stepper motors or actually heat up the bed or hot end. My power supply is plugged in and turned on, and the panel switch on the electronics door is on too. The fan in the power supply isn't moving. What am I doing wrong?

that pretty much means your power supply isnt turned on.

did you wire it to the switch correctly? also you will want to swap the jumper on the rambo board so that it powers from the power supply and not the usb cable.

on some power supplies the fan is temperature controlled so it may or may not come on till a certain temperature is reached.

how do you know if your power supply is on?

disconnect the usb cable, after swapping the jumper to pc supply. turn-on the power supply. If it doesn't power up then something is wrong with your wiring.

I just stuffed the connector pins on the switch into it more; apparently they were loose. Now the fan is running on the power supply but I still can't move the steppers or heat anything. The thermistors seem to be working correctly though. What do you mean by swap the jumper on the rambo?

Generic Default wrote:I just stuffed the connector pins on the switch into it more; apparently they were loose. Now the fan is running on the power supply but I still can't move the steppers or heat anything. The thermistors seem to be working correctly though. What do you mean by swap the jumper on the rambo?

those connectors should be soldered. the switch is not the stuffing type..;/

there is jumper on the rambo that allows you to power the system from pc supply and not the usb port. the jumper is near the usb port, just move it to the bottom two pins. though if your power is working now this wouldn't cause your steppers not to move.

I pushed my crimp pins into the connectors more and now the motors work. I can read the temperature and heat up both the hot end and the bed. The only problem I have now is that something feels horribly wrong with my motors. They can only make full steps; microstepping will make a quiet buzzing noise until the movement is rounded to the next full step. The moving parts feel extremely jerky because of it, and any motion makes a loud sound if it's continuous. Also, I just tried the G28 command and the platform started moving down and toward the x tower. I can't move the platform up in the Z direction at all. The motors just buzz and nothing happens. What should I do?

there's is a lot going on here. pins on the connectors need to go all the way in till they click in place, looks like you solved that.

are far as the other stuff, did you follow along in the manual written by geneb, he has a new version out supposedly updated from the old.
everyone here with the new rambo boards are running 16 microstepping. I would check your settings again according to that manual. see if you missed something.
invert axis in the firmware to change direction of movement, to either true or false depending, so if its true set it to false, if false set to true.

You may want to check the status of your end-stops "limit switches" if you haven't already. They should all read low unless triggered.

I checked the limit switches multiple times and they're working fine. The temperature control works great for both the hot end and the bed. I finally got the arms to move smoothly by cramming the crimps in the 4 pin connector for the X axis, but they slide out easily after a while. I don't like the 4 pin design.

Now I just need to invert my axises to be able to G28 home. I inverted the directions in the configurations file like the directions said, but how do I upload the code to the rambo? I attached a screenshot of the error last time I tried.

there are locking tabs in the pins, if they get crushed they wont lock in place

And they don't lock if you don't seat them far enough.
it is VERY IMPORTANT that you get the motor wires properly crimped and properly seated in the connectors, the motor drivers do not like having the motor connector unplugged while power is applied, it can destroy the driver and a loose connection is basically like randomly unplugging motor wires.

The movement starts out smooth after I jam the pins into the 4 pin connector, then it gets more and more jerky until it's back to a vibrating mess. The pins must be vibrating themselves loose, and I can't figure out how to get them to stay in. They are past the little lock-in tab part of the crimp, which is as far as I can push them.

I still can't upload the firmware. I followed the directions in the latest manual but they aren't very specific about how to upload code. See the screenshot a few posts above.

try arduino 1.0.3 and above, doesn't seem you have the files loaded in your arduino ide, when you select repetier.ino/ repetier.pde file. it should open all the files that need to be uploaded.

not sure that you can just upload the config.h file like that.

do have a pic of your pins? i'll take pic of what they should look like for you

make sure this tab isn't bent down, it should be sticking up as shown. if its bent down, take some tweezers and slightly bend it back up.

On the firmware front, you need to load the Repetier.pde file into the arduino ide, not just configuration.h.
I suspect you are not pushing the connectors in far enough, but I'd need to see a picture.
As I say in my previous post you need to make sure the connections are good, if they are not you can damage the RAMBO board.

OK more bad news on my end.

I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to upload the firmware to the rambo using that .ino file, and it never actually finished uploading. So I stopped it after about 30 minutes and now the repetier software won't connect to the printer.
I also checked my crimp pin inserts, and they look just like that picture. The plastic pin connectors that actually fit into the rambo receptacles are wobbly, but I think that's normal.

I got mine the maker faire.

Generic Default wrote:OK more bad news on my end.

I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to upload the firmware to the rambo using that .ino file, and it never actually finished uploading. So I stopped it after about 30 minutes and now the repetier software won't connect to the printer.
I also checked my crimp pin inserts, and they look just like that picture. The plastic pin connectors that actually fit into the rambo receptacles are wobbly, but I think that's normal.

The shouldn't be wobbly, did you feel the click when the pins go into the connector?
You should.
There is a point when inserting the pins where it looks very similar but it's not in far enough, you should not be able to see the pin from the top, and that often means using a pair of pliers to push the pin in using a small amount of the insulated wire at a time. If it was easy to get the pin in then its probably not far enough, although sometimes you get lucky.
I absolutely hate dupont connectors FWIW, the same pitch Molex connectors are much better designed and have a lot more space for the wire insulation and are much harder to mess up.

I finally hooked up the extruder stepper. When I press retract, it vibrates back and forth. It turns maybe 5 degrees in one direction, then reverses and turns the opposite way.

My crimps are jammed as far into the connectors as they will fit. I tried pressing them in more with needle nose pliers, and they won't go any further.

The other axis steppers are still inconsistent. Right now the Z axis isn't working, the x axis is working fine, and the Y axis isn't putting out enough torque as it should be.

EDIT

Now the extruder is working fine, and I didn't even change anything.

Generic Default wrote:I finally hooked up the extruder stepper. When I press retract, it vibrates back and forth. It turns maybe 5 degrees in one direction, then reverses and turns the opposite way.

My crimps are jammed as far into the connectors as they will fit. I tried pressing them in more with needle nose pliers, and they won't go any further.

What you are describing is exactly what you get with incorrectly wired steppers.