Wanhao i3 Plus duet upgrade
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Hello all new to the forum. Currently eagerly awaiting the postman with my new duet wifi. I am planning to upgrade my wanhao i3 Plus to a duet mainboard. Total overkill for this purpose but I have future plans for this thing. I managed to kill the extruder driver on the melzi board that came with the printer when changing over to the e3d titan aero hotend/extruder and want to make sure that i don't do the same to the duet.
A few questions.
1/ When I'm installing the hardware for the first time should I set the stepper motor pot down to the minimum and then gradually bring it up? I suspect the initial cause of failure was me unplugging and plugging in the stepper with the power on (stupid I know now but didnt at the time.)
2/The power supply I have is also 24V will this need any adjustment before the first power on of the board?
3/ I have a BLtouch I had planned to set up on this printer would you recommend using this or the IR sensor the board seems to be very compatible with? (I plan on using glass bed mostly coated with PEI or buildtak material depending)
4/ Would you recommend initially setting up the printer with the Z endstop still in place or should I go straight for the bed compensation setup and forgo the Z endstop.
Thanks for any advice -
(My opinions)
1. Stepper motor pot? With the duet board, the power to the stepper is controlled with gcode commands, so no need for a pot. (See #2)
2. No. However, I'd suggest not plugging in the extruders until after you have the board up and configured. (When I did my FFCP conversion, I initially had nothing attached to the duet board except for the paneldue and PSU. After I got the config set up, I would power things down, attach one component, power on, test it, and repeat… This way, if something went wrong, I'd be able to easily isolate it.)
3. If you are going to change the build surface on occassion, I'd suggest the bltouch. The BLTouch (when working) will work the same across any type of build surface or coating. It's nice being able to switch from "glass with hairspray" to "glass with blue tape" and not have to recalibrate anything. The IR sensor (while perhaps more reliable) will give different readings for different types of surfaces
4. Personally, I'd set it up with the mechanical switch first. Then, configure the probe to trigger before the mechanical switch is triggered and then comment out (but don't delete) the configuration for the mechanical switch.
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For what it's worth firmware 1.21 which is nearing release has a z-probe type dedicated to the BLTouch which should make setup a little easier.
I'd also recommend spending some time reading the Documentation Wiki and the Gcode glossary. It will make setup and configuration much easier.
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Excellent responses thanks very much ill keep these in mind when it comes to the build and leave the BL touch out for the time being till the new firmware update comes out and get it set up then.
