Hi, I'm done assembling most of the kit, but don't understand how to install the firmware. And also, how to attach the thermistor.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
I do not know for sure, but I think your board setup came with the "MARLIN" firmware already loaded. If you want to read up on how to for beginners see: SolidUtopia.com is for sale | HugeDomains
As far as the thermistor, it is already built into your extruder. The quick connector contains purple and black wires that are terminated in another connector that goes on your Ramps Shield board see pg.43 fig 1. The thermistor found in pkg. C7 is an extra in case you have to repair your extruder.
Just to keep things straight, I have not finished wiring my machine, so I am not an expert on this so you may want to wait for an official word from the moderator.
ismaelbaum :
Just in case your board did not come with the Firmware, I have compiled a blog that seems to work for loading my firmware. It is a rough approximation of what I had learned from reading the information available. If the process works out, I will polish the syntax a bit later but here is something you can experiment with to see if it works for you.
Loading the firmware for your Materia 101 is straightforward. even though the Arduino site is rather confusing for Joe Average.
Up at the top of the forum page is a tab called DOWNLOAD. This will take you to the Arduino software page. You will see ARDUINO 1.6.4 and off to the right you will have a choice of Windows Installer, Mac OS X, Linux 32bit, Linux 64bit. This is the software that will load firmware for all of the Arduino boards as of now.
You have to download that software to your computer and copy it into a file that you can remember. I use The Windows system so I choose Windows Installer and it downloads to my windows file and puts an Arduino logo on my desktop so I can open up the software by clicking that software.
Now I have the Arduino loader software. I have to open it up and make sure that It recognizes the particular board that I have which is the Arduino Mega 2560. I set this by opening up the software and using the tab marked "TOOLS" select Mega or Mega 2560. The software will remember this setting whenever I open it up until I change it in the future.
I now need the actual firmware called Marlin. I get this by going to the next tab from the download tab called PRODUCTS. Opening up this tab I find Arduino, opening up this I am presented with the Arduino boards and other. I cursor down to the Materia 101 Icon and opening up this You will find all of the data about the Arduino materia 101. Going down to the bottom of this page you will find Materia Firmware.zip. Download this file to your computer and unzip it to a file you can remember. You are going to have to tell the Arduino loading software that you downloaded before a particular file (marlin.pde) that starts the auto loading process.
Now open up the Arduino software. On the first page you will find tabs across the top listed as File,Edit,Sketch,Tools,Help. You open up the file tab and select open on the drop down menu. you then find the file with the marlin firmware, find the file called marlin.pde click on it to send it to the Arduino software. You then hook up the USB cable that came with your kit, (No Power on the Arduino) and the loading takes place. Bear in mind that the process is automatic and there is no indication that anythig happened. If you want you can check to see if your computer recognizes your Mega 2560 board
I had a bit of trouble loading the firmware as the loader kept giving an error. When I stroked the menu item "upload" under the file tab, the error appeared in red in the communication box. I checked that the computer and Arduino had the same com port and switched to another port. not the problem. Kept trying, eventually the load took. Cannot explain, maybe the board just has trouble initializing. I need to do some more searching for the answer
Oh, I had missed the thermistor cables! And somehow I had downloaded the wrong files... I did have to load them though.
That was really easy, thank you for the detailed explanation @normoldboy.
With those things out of the way, I expect to have it working very soon. Thanks!