Having set up the studio space here in gallery Titanik I’m once again struggling with the electronics of the RepRap. I got the board back from Traumflug — in addition to fixing it he’d also made it shiny! — and he had successfully used it to move motors and such, so the board is OK. But when I plug in my Pololus and motors and PSU, nothing much happens. Frustration runs high with this one. I have two videos of the troubleshooting below:
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In the first video I have a 300W PSU hooked in to the board, and in the second video I try to use a DVD as a load resistor, after recommendation from Traumflug. Spoiler alert: In neither of the videos does the board move the motors, nor give me a reading on the meter. The next step will be to to add a proper load resistor onto the PSU instead of the DVD player— this is slightly more involved than just jamming a bunch of ¼W resistors in there, so I’ll have to do some research on it. The following links might give a clue:
How to Convert a Computer ATX Power Supply to a Lab Power Supply
Desktop power supply from a PC
An alternative to this would be to get a totally new power supply. I know that people have been using Xbox 360 bricks for power, and I’m sure there’s a crapload of alternatives which would work. I’m just hesitant to give up on the only part of the RepRap which I’ve actually scrounged myselft — The PSU was going to be thrown out with a bunch of computer trash at Chalmers, and I thought I’d give it a second chance at usefulness. Not that this project lacks DIY spirit and such, but you catch my drift; Ideally you’d be building the whole printer out of garbage and driftwood.