Drive a 3d printer with "pure" arduino?

Question

Hi everyone,

One of my members has a question:

"Does anyone out there have any experience with driving a 3d printer using "standard" arduino, rather than the specialized boards usually used (RAMPS, sanguino, etc)?

thanks,"

His original request is here:

http://www.engineerslooking.com/need-stuff/drive-a-3d-printer-with-pure-arduino

Nate1616 · Accepted Answer

Hey Richard As most 3D printers use some form of a stepper motor you would need some form of a driver. The purpose of the driver is to receive the pulses from the controller (example Adruino Mega) interpret its magnitude and then determines how and when the windings should be energized. The driver also allows you to send larger voltages to get higher step rates than what the motor can handle by being a current limiter. The last thing is that a standard arduino can not provide enough power for the motors. Hope this clarifies this a little more Nate

R_Phoenix · Answer

Not sure why you would want to, what's the point? You will still need to use stepper motor drivers, relay shields to drive the hot end and build plate. To me, a RAMBO is a standard Arduino - it just has all the shields needed built onto the board. It is programmed in the Arduino IDE. Using an Arduino MEGA with shield after shield stacked on it with jumper going all over the place to me is a huge waste of time and effort. But - if you really want to, I believe the CupCake might be a place to start. If I remember correctly it started out with just an arduino Uno or MEGE driving it, or you migh find more info here http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap