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yes I'm in over my head. so I'm working on the H1 my brother gave me and after some major issues with the old controller, I ordered a RAMPS 1.4. Wiring and setup seem straight forward, however now I don't know what I'm doing. looking around I see plenty of people have used ramps with slic3r and printrun is this correct?

http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap_Options, the software toolchain section covers what you're asking. You have many choices for firmware, host, CAD and slicing software.

http://www.repetier.com/ is probably the most familiar to users of this forum, although mainly in the context of the Rostock hardware. They've got some decent documentation as well, especially on setting up the firmware.

http://reprap.org/wiki/Marlin was another popular choice, especially during the early days when the H1 was for sale.

http://www.mattercontrol.com/ is pretty new and has recently become popular for the host side.

Eric wrote:http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap_Options, the software toolchain section covers what you're asking. You have many choices for firmware, host, CAD and slicing software.

http://www.repetier.com/ is probably the most familiar to users of this forum, although mainly in the context of the Rostock hardware. They've got some decent documentation as well, especially on setting up the firmware.

http://reprap.org/wiki/Marlin was another popular choice, especially during the early days when the H1 was for sale.

http://www.mattercontrol.com/ is pretty new and has recently become popular for the host side.

wow thanks for the links! it gives me a good place to start at least.