In my free time I enjoy tweaking and modifying my 3D Printer at home. When I first bought my Monoprice Maker Select v2, it had very nice print quality and it was very reliable. As I kept using it, the quality got worse and worse until two of the stepper motor drivers on the motherboard failed. I had to replace the motherboard and the stock board was far too expensive to be worth buying. I decided that an MKS GEN 1.4 with A4988 drivers would work perfectly for my application. I configured the Marlin firmware to account for the hardware that I had on my machine but I encountered many issues along the way.
Besides the LCD problem, I had a lot of stepper driver issues as well. The first pack of 5 drivers contained 3 drivers that were already fried. I did not realize this right away so I had to troubleshoot the problem. I started by moving the working drivers to each of the axes to confirm that the motors were still functional. I also started probing the drivers, motors, and other motherboard components with a handheld multi-meter. This confirmed that the motherboard was also still functional, leading to the discovery of the broken stepper drivers. After ordering more and replacing the fried pieces, the printer worked as expected.
To continue improving on the printer, I installed a z-brace to improve on the ringing in the prints. This brace makes the frame far stiffer and the prints improved drastically. In addition, the modification of a glass print surface made the prints stick to the bed better as well as having a near mirror-finish.
