So, in the last month, there have been a lot of parts deliveries: namely the hotend and most of the electronics (still waiting on the damn stepper motor wires and heatbed to show up). I spend the time mainly just assembling them and doing mockups of the new machine's systems.

Unfortunately, I was really put off at first by how complicated this looked. Breaking out the SPI conenctors from AUX-3 on the ramps and then soldering stuff to the board would just make it look bad, and at worst was permanent. I wanted to go for a nice and tidy approach, keeping all the functionality of the board with no major adjustments. Meaning if I blow up a RAMPS, I just change it out.

I finally settled on a removable breakout board. Here's the internal layout of the electronics:

So, from here, I am waiting on a few things.

1. My cloned Taurino Power board: It accepts a 24v VIN, and allows me to run it standalone through the RAMPS' D1 diode.
2. Heated bed: Can't decide between 200x200mm or 300x200mm. Near impossible to find the 2nd but I'm gimping the printer with the 1st.
3. Heat bed holder: Still need to machine a plate that holds it all. I already tried but using a CNC router is a terrible idea for rookies... Help?
4. Stepper motor wires: Literally the most insignificant thing about this project but I don't think it was ever ordered... whoops.
5. Print cooling fan: I killed my last blower fan and need to get another one.