Hello,
I have been experimenting quite a long time with Estlcam and I always thought to be very limited with a standard RAMPS board running Marlin in combination with Estlcam.
Since the official Estlcam hardware is quite primitive and definitely not suited for an Arduino Mega, I decided to develop my own PCB, which should be as simple to use as a RAMPS board but allows me to use all functionalities of Estlcam.
I designed the PCB in a way that it works with standard DRV8825 Stepper Drivers and all important software-supported pins are provided on the PCB via separate headers.
I hope that my PCB may help a lot of MPCNC enthusiasts which experience the same problems as me.
Constructive criticism, both the Allegro (A2968 is it?) and the TI (DRV8825) drivers are not designed to have a heatsink stuck on the driver chip themselves. They are designed to dissipate heat via the PCB, that’s why there is a square PCB area on the bottom of the carrier PCB. This area needs to have a heatsink stuck to it via thermal glue.
I’m running nearly 2A in this arrangement and forced air cooling.
@Matt - thank you very much for feedback! It seems logical to me! If I understand you correct, the pins are soldered the wrong way by default. This means that normally I have to resolder the pin headers on the DRV8825 drivers up side down?
@Jeffeb3 - no, basically its just a rewiring and three capacitors for the stepper drivers.
In my DRV’s the pins are wired correctly when viewed from the top and the potentiometer is also viewable. Now in this orientation the heating pad is underneath (main board side) . I used additional extended headers to allow for the correct mounting of heatsinks - basically I raised the driver board up 10mm or so.
On my RAMPS1.6 board the capacitors (and jumpers) are mounted in-between the driver pins which is the the correct mounting of the heatsink is such a PITA
