Custom heated bed upgrade for UM1

[glasswalker 0]

Hey, so I designed a custom heated bed upgrade for my UM Original... New Z platform (solid aluminum plate) new flanged linear bearings (similar to official bed kit), and using an MK2B heated bed and glass plate with 3 point mount and wing nuts to level it.

So far so good, works fantastically.

But I'm manually controlling power to the bed right now.

I've heard the reason that UM went with the external control board for the official kit is that the PSU shipped with the UM Original isn't up to the task of powering the heated bed and all other electronics.

Is this the only issue?

The reason I ask is for simplicity, I'd love to just wire the heatbed to the UM control board, and simply replace the PSU with one that's superior. But if there are issues with the control board itself, or it's mosfets, or whatever, then perhaps I should go through building an external control board, or just using an SSR.

Thoughts?

(oh and if anyone wants pics I can post them later).

[Labern 775]

I know that this doesn't answer you question but It would be great to see some pictures of your hack. I'm sure others would like to see it also.

[tommyph1208 55]

A common approach before the heatbed kit has been to drive a relay with the mosfet... The relay is hooked up to the heatbed and a seperate 24V power supply...

I didn't like the idea of 2 PSUs and all the relays and stuff, 19V is also generally incompatible with alot of reprap parts, and so in the end I decided to swap the board eentirely...

I now use a RUMBA board running 24V and it drives everything with a ~300W, 24V PSU mounted under the printer...