I purchased a SainSmart Megatronics 2.0 kit with GLCD back in February. It was lovingly packed (can you sense the sarcasm?) by someone who didn't care, and the "kit" was a pile of random parts heaped into a box with zero documentation. Picture five stepper motors rattling around loose from China to North America, with a bit of thin bubble wrap around the boards. Amazingly, nothing was damaged, but the heated bed was warped enough to not be useable unless camped to a piece of glass to hold it flat.
One of the two GLCD ribbon cables had an end that was crimped on backwards, and unfortunately I didn't notice it until it blew the on-board +5V regulator. The board still runs getting +5V from the USB port. The A4988 adjuster potentiometers were not set to any default value, making me wonder if they were tested at the factory before shipping. Otherwise, the boards have not needed any retouch soldering, and are generally solid.
My biggest gripe (other than zero documentation in a "kit") is that SainSmart does not include simple things like jumper caps and stepper motor plugs with their kits. When buying a bundle with stepper motors and a controller board, one should reasonably expect the stepper motors to have connectors on them or at least in the box! Not SainSmart. You'll get bare wires, which I guess is one less thing to rattle around loose in the box damaging the more expensive bits. I had to go out and buy jumper caps at Radio Shack, since my parts drawer was about a dozen short for all of the micro-stepper jumper pins on the Megatronics 2.0 board.
The cost savings compared to the aggravation factor are a wash, IMHO. I got everything working in the long run, and it printed nearly 2Kg of filament without any additional problems. If you are looking at a SainSmart bundle thinking that everything you need is in the box, this is not what you will get. If you read the reviews of their RAMPS/Mega2560 bundle on Amazon, there were a few reports of bad solder joints and other problems with those boards IIRC.
On the other hand, I replaced my Megatronics 2.0 board with a 32-bit Azteeg X5 Mini from Paucatt, and have nothing but praise for them and their product. Their order page offered my choice of motor connectors on the board, and an add-on complete wiring kit that has pigtails for every connector on the board. I ordered the required microSD card as well, and it came with a full-sized SD card adapter in the package! Guess which one I will be doing business with again in the future?????
One of the two GLCD ribbon cables had an end that was crimped on backwards, and unfortunately I didn't notice it until it blew the on-board +5V regulator. The board still runs getting +5V from the USB port. The A4988 adjuster potentiometers were not set to any default value, making me wonder if they were tested at the factory before shipping. Otherwise, the boards have not needed any retouch soldering, and are generally solid.
My biggest gripe (other than zero documentation in a "kit") is that SainSmart does not include simple things like jumper caps and stepper motor plugs with their kits. When buying a bundle with stepper motors and a controller board, one should reasonably expect the stepper motors to have connectors on them or at least in the box! Not SainSmart. You'll get bare wires, which I guess is one less thing to rattle around loose in the box damaging the more expensive bits. I had to go out and buy jumper caps at Radio Shack, since my parts drawer was about a dozen short for all of the micro-stepper jumper pins on the Megatronics 2.0 board.
The cost savings compared to the aggravation factor are a wash, IMHO. I got everything working in the long run, and it printed nearly 2Kg of filament without any additional problems. If you are looking at a SainSmart bundle thinking that everything you need is in the box, this is not what you will get. If you read the reviews of their RAMPS/Mega2560 bundle on Amazon, there were a few reports of bad solder joints and other problems with those boards IIRC.
On the other hand, I replaced my Megatronics 2.0 board with a 32-bit Azteeg X5 Mini from Paucatt, and have nothing but praise for them and their product. Their order page offered my choice of motor connectors on the board, and an add-on complete wiring kit that has pigtails for every connector on the board. I ordered the required microSD card as well, and it came with a full-sized SD card adapter in the package! Guess which one I will be doing business with again in the future?????