Replicape Rev B - 3D printer controller board

Replicape is a high end 3D-printer electronics package in the form of a Cape that can be placed on a BeagleBone® Black. This page is about the Major revision B. It has five high power and low noise stepper motors with cool running MosFets and it has been designed to fit in small spaces without active cooling and without the need for physical access to the board once installed. That means no potentiometers to trim or switches to flip. This page is about the hardware. It explains how to install the board and wire everything up. If you are looking for software that will run, have a look at the Kamikaze CNC image. There are other options as well, but that is the standard that will work for most people. Blazing fast Replicape runs on BeagleBone® Black, a 1GHz CPU with two additional 200 MHz PRUs. What does that mean? It means you can have a huge delta while still running OctoPrint and Toggle. Stealthy silent By using the industry leading TMC 2100 stepper motor drivers, the sound leves are lowered to an incredibly low level. The stepper motor whining will not be the most prominent sound for your 3D-printer. Smart and connected Replicape is a connected device, meaning it has access to the internet. That is good, because it means it can run a web server giving instant access to all computers and smart phones in the network. Mounting the Replicape on the BeagleBone®. As the name suggests, Replicape is a cape. Capes are one of the defining things about BeagleBone® black/white/green, where the main development board acts as a base unit, and then accepts different add-on hardware through the two 48 pin headers, which in turn define some of the pin behaviors during Linux kernel startup. This is similar to "shields" on Arduino and "HAT"s on Raspberry Pi. Mounting the Replicape on BeagleBone® should be pretty straight forward, just make sure the notch in the cape goes around the Ethernet connector so it makes a.. cape! How to wire up the board Fritzing example The Fritzing board below shows the most basic setup for connecting the board. Connector overview Steppers Bipolar and hybrid stepper motors are supported with these stepper motor drivers (SMD). Some smaller stepper motors are known to produce a high pitch noise and get very warm even with a low current setting. They will appear to work, but they may very well burn do to the large heat being produced. With the board oriented as in the above image, the wires for the steppers are: Rev B2: 1, 2, 3, 4 = OB1, OA1, OA2, OB2