First Thingiverse submission!

Rather than try and re-create thingiverse manually , I posted my RepRap Mega Shield to Thingiverse.

Renoir's RepRap Arduino Mega shield

Enjoy!

Renoir's Mega Shield built

I've been soldering and building and I've finished my mega shield!

From RenoirsMegaShield

The build went well. I 'tinned' the copper pads (using some plumbing flux and a tiny bit of solder), which made the soldering a bit easier. Using a tip (from ladyada?) I converted some standard header pins to some through-pins by pushing them through using the flat on a pair of pliers, three or 4 at a time:

From RenoirsMegaShield

Once I'd fixed the pins, I could put them through into the arduino and check the alignment - OK. I left the pins partially pushed in to maintain the position, and soldered a single pin from each row:

From RenoirsMegaShield

This held them in place when I removed the mega and soldered the rest.

From RenoirsMegaShield

I've now got 10-pin IDC headers for X,Y,Z, and extruder (A) - and a spare (B) using header pins as I ran out of sockets. There's a space for the 20-pin interface connector from the generation 4 designs, and a whole set of +5v/GND/analog in headers for temperature probes, extra sensors, etc. Along the top is an I2C 4-pin header, and similar +5v/GND/digital I/O headers for servos, TX/RX comms, and some PWM pins. 8 PWM outputs are taken to a separate 10-pin IDC header that is intended to go to a MOSFET power driver board to drive the heater and heated bed (coming soon).

Mega RepRap sheild

I've been working for a couple of weeks on a RepRap Arduino Mega shield. I've got a mix of early generation 2 electronics, a few home-made single sided generation 3 stepper boards, and old arduino with a screw-terminal shield and a brand-new arduino mega.

I designed myself a version of an arduino mega shield to connect the gen3 stepper boards using the 10-pin IDC cables, and it might be useful for anyone transitioning between generations of electronics. Headlines:

• Single-sided for home-made boards
• 5 stepper driver headers - x,y,z,a,b - should match existing gen3 electronics.
• (future-proof?) UI interface header that *should* match gen4 electronics.
• Heater 10-pin IDC (to plug in MOSFET driver board later) - should be able to drive a reprap setup with 1 or 2 extruders/ heated bed without an additional extruder board.
• I2c header as per standard boards
• Optional extra 3-pin headers for digital in\out and analog in : +5v, GND, and data pin. This makes it easy to add temperature sensors, kill switches, extra limit switches, etc (I'm only using the min endstops).

If you think it might be useful, the files are here :
Eagle files for Renoir's RepRap Mega Shield

I've just etched one using my laserprinter/laminator method, and I've just etched two more single-sided stepper drivers. I'll post some photos once it's been assembled.

p.s. All files (and anything on this blog) available under creative commons attribution 3.0 licence.
:-)

Arduino Mega Shield

I'm fiddling with an eagle design for a RepRap arduino mega shield. I couldn't find any eagle files for the basic sheild pins, so here's one I ripped from the arduino reference design.

Arduino Mega Shield Eagle Files