I cleaned up the rat nest of wiring I had from testing. I got some series 2500 wafer connectors and pins from Tayda to replace the headers on the RAMPS so I couldn’t accidentally hook something up backward in the future, as I tend to do that while quickly messing around in my moments of free time.
I still need to properly mount the boards and screen. I’m still debating where I want to mount the screen. I’m leaning toward mounting on the lid, but I would need some much longer IDC cables to be able to easily open the lid. To keep things clean and avoid wire nuts and splices, I also ordered some series 2400 pins to utilize in the wafer connector on the power supply for the 5v(red) and active low laser pin(green). I scavenged some XH series JST connectors (from an old IDE Raid array module) to use for the laser PWM(blue).
After reconnecting I fired it up and ran a program. I realized I had left the laser switch off. I clicked it on while the program was running and after a couple of seconds the motors stopped, the laser turned off and the LCD faded to black… shit. I could hear the pump and water running which was my first fear (a flow switch is on my list because I will forget to turn it on at some point) and I checked the tube and didn’t see a problem. I didn’t have a light on the power switch but I had 120v on the female end of the power cable.
After taking a closer look at the male connector I see a built-in fuse holder.
I think it says 4A on the fuse. First I checked that there were no direct shorts, and there were not. 40W at 120V would be about 3A. Plus maybe a couple of hundred mA from the motors. Some more current from a spike from pushing the switch and of course some inefficiency in converting to higher and lower voltages. 4A seems reasonable to get to, so hopefully, it is that and not a failure somewhere. I’ll find out after I get some replacement fuses… I think there is still one Radioshack left in town.
Perhaps I should dial back the laser output as well.
