/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Hey lads, will I damage a RAMPS board if I power it up with no hardware? I want to test each of the stepper drivers/sockets individually but don't want to risk plugging them all in at the same time. I don't have an extruder, heatbed, thermistors, or limit switches hooked up. The only thing I know for sure is I run the risk of killing it, the driver, and possibly the stepper if I try hooking up the stepper when the board is on.

Hey so I'm kind of new to this stuff in general and I'm trying to build a laser. I've got a Raspberry Pi and a RAMPS 1.4 board which I'm trying to use PyCNC with. Do I need to flash anything to the RAMPS board itself, or is it just plug-and-play? I always thought the RAMPS was just a rewiring of sorts and that the Arduino was the brains of the whole thing - my old printers have a RAMBo and some other board which I don't remember, but they both used only one board and neither of them was arduino-based (both self-contained).

So I'm in the market for getting a RAMPS 1.4 board, but I don't know who to trust and won't give me trouble. The two printers I had before came as kits and worked without any problems, so I haven't had to replace any electronics yet. I'm seeing there's a lot of packages on Amazon for a RAMPS + MEGA + some drivers and cables for about $30-$40 or so, but not very good reviews (DOA, bad solder, smoke comes out on the first go) and I'd rather not spend the extra time to resolder/deal with customer support.

Are there any specific brands of RAMPS 1.4 boards which I can get which are known-good? I can't find if there is an "original" manufacturer (like Arduino making their own boards vs. some guy in a shop slapping theirs together from bargain parts).