I've never worked with a wiki before, so this may end up being a relatively piecemeal kinda deal. If you wanna continue my work, feel free to do so using the original Google Doc. - Terrance S.

RepRap Arduino Mega Pololu Shield (RAMPS) is the standard of development for the open source replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) movement. Though there may be many different approaches to the way this is done, largely RAMPS is the primary hardware backend for many, if not all 3D printers today within the consumer DIY market at the very least.

This guide is my contribution to the open source movement of the 3D market space, since I fully believe—along with many, many others—that the only way to move forward is to share what should be commonplace knowledge. Taking that, you—and I do mean you, the reader—should move forward and innovate. Pay it forward and all that jazz.

A few things worth mentioning before we continue:

• I don’t assume you know anything about electronics. I don’t know a damn thing about them (I work in the IT field by trade, and that’s entirely software). So things will be reduced to the most basic level with regards to instructions.
  • I do assume, however, that you have at least a basic understanding of how to work with computers; specifically software. If you don’t know the difference between a click and a double-click (not judging, just putting it out there), I would suggest brushing up there first.
• Though I’m platform agnostic (meaning that I don’t particularly care which platform/Operating System/etc. that I use), I do prefer to use Mac for everything except gaming. For software-specific instructions, you’ll see screenshots in macOS. If there are differences between how to do something within Mac and their Windows counterparts, I will do my best to draw attention to them.
• When recommending components, I’m generally going to do it using Amazon. Even if I didn’t have an Amazon Prime membership, I can’t remember what life was like before Amazon became the thing it is today. Things are cheap, delivery is quick, and support is exquisite.
• For some reason, I don’t like using pictures a lot. I apologize; this is something I’m trying to get used to, but in general I won’t use a lot of pictures. If they help with what I’m trying to explain (e.g., that one connector thing I can’t describe otherwise, or a diagram), I’ll use them. Otherwise, they’re just fluff and unnecessary disk space.
• Where possible, I’m going to give credit to the resources I used to get to where I’m at. That’s part of the whole “pay it forward” mantra I mentioned earlier, and I believe it’s obnoxious to build off of someone else’s work without giving them their due credit.
  • That being said, I’ll start right off the bat with giving credit to 3D Printer Czar for their work on the RAMPS 1.4 Assembly Guide. Without it, I would’ve been stuck up the creek without a paddle. It’s a very well-written guide, though I’ll admit I glossed over a lot of stuff.

One question that seems to pop up a lot about this particular guide—and the thing that caused me to make the jump myself—is, “Why would I want to do this?”

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a picture to show you why I did it:

THIS IS WHERE A PICTURE WILL GO EVENTUALLY MAYBE.

In the event you can’t see what the photo is showing you, it’s this: The mainboard from my Anet A8 caught fire after about two weeks’ worth of printing. I am not entirely sure what caused the fire since my wiring was correct (despite some speculation from the Anet Facebook group), but I do know this: The Marlin firmware that Anet uses in their mainboards is older than the current stable version, and it lacks the basic safeguards that newer Marlin releases has.

Specifically, it’s missing the neat feature that covers what’s known as “thermal runaway”, that is, when the heatbed (or hotend) try to heat up but fail to do so, Marlin will automatically set itself into a failure status and halt all electrical activities until you reset.

There are still some things that I want to get around to adding to this guide. When they are added, I’ll mark them as complete. If possible, I’ll also add some self-imposed deadlines to make things a bit more predictable as to when you can expect those changes.

This guide assumes at the very least that you’ve gotten yourself some sort of 3D printer lying around that has the ability to be migrated to a RAMPS installation. In my case, I started with a cheap Prusa i3 clone on eBay. It’s the Anet A8, and in the interest of full disclosure, I ended up going the RAMPS route due to the main board not being smart enough to stop itself from catching fire.

So, the list of things you need to move forward:

• That printer I just mentioned. It doesn’t have to be the Anet A8; many other printers will do just fine, I’m sure. But I can really only personally vouch for this printer. What’s more, it’s on the low end of 3D printers budgeting-wise.

Cost: Varies. I picked mine up for around $180.00 USD from the link given earlier.

• RAMPS equipment. With this, you can either source the Polulu Shield, Arduino MEGA board, and other parts yourself, or you can go with a kit for a quicker transition. I’d personally recommend the latter option, but that’s because I believe that the destination is more important than the journey (and also, I’m lazy).
  • Cost: Varies. In this case, the one I personally went with was this one from Amazon. At the time of this writing, it’s going for a mere $34.68 USD, and it’s served me well for the past couple of months. ALSO, if you’re going to shop on Amazon, I’d recommend checking out Amazon Smile. It lets you give a portion of your purchase to the charity of your choice. I do smile a bit more when I purchase through Smile, so… please do the same.
• Additional hardware. It goes without saying, but you’ll need to have some tools to make the jump. They aren’t mandatory, but if you’re serious about 3D printing—and I hope you are!—this will pay dividends moving forward. My specific recommendations for adapting your kit to a RAMPS setup are:
  • DuPont connectors. This is the name of those li’l black ends you… that… well, that… I’m bad at describing this. So, I’ll use a picture instead:

ANOTHER PICTURE PLACEHOLDER.

• Yes, that thing. There are kits on Amazon (I’m a huge fan of theirs; you’ll learn this quickly) that sell these connectors at amazingly low cost. The one that I’d recommend is this one here, which contains 425 pieces for $10.99 USD. Hilitchi also has other kits going upwards of 1,000 pieces (which is what I got, but I’m a nerd) for $16.87 USD.

With DuPont connectors, you’ll need something to crimp them. Though you can use any random set of pliers you’ve got laying around to do this, they’re not specialized for the task, and you’ll have varying degrees of success (trust me, I know). Instead, I’d recommend getting an actual DuPont crimper. For the moment, I’m not going to discuss how to use them with DuPont connectors because there are plenty of videos on YouTube covering the subject, and that’s how I learned. Note: If you watch a video and it brings up soldering, disregard. DuPont connectors do not require soldering, and it’s allegedly bad practice to use solder. Cost: $23.00 USD. The one I linked above is the one I went for, and it works like a charm.

Wiring. Eventually, you’re going to run into a situation where you need extra wiring to get some more wiggle room with your build. For this, I’d recommend this ribbon cable; it’s cheap and it does the job very well. You don’t need to match the RAMPS standard of green, blue, red, and black wiring; so long as the wires go where they need to go, the color is immaterial. Cost: Varies. Depending on how much wire you want, it’ll run as low as $8.98 USD, possibly lower with some sleuthing.

More wiring/cabling. Another thing that I didn’t know when I started was that the cabling that the Anet A8 kit wasn’t necessarily the best cable for the job. Specifically, they used a very high gauge of wire that had the possibility to overheat. I believe the REPRAP forums recommend using around 16-gauge wire for anything pulling in a lot of current, and, well… 3D printers in general use a lot of the stuff. You can find various gauges of wire on the cheap on Amazon; take note: the lower the number, the thicker the cable (e.g., 12-gauge is substantially thicker than 20-gauge).

Wire strippers. I thought I could get away with using my wire cutters to strip wires, but… wire strippers were quite literally made for the job, and they’re fantastic at it. I’d recommend this pair on Amazon; they have blown me away with how well they work. Cost: Varies. The ones I linked are (at the time of this writing) $12.57 USD.