I used a printrboard and now have a smoothieboard azteeg x5 mini. For making small changes, the smoothieboard is a lot easier. No more putting jumpers on and off, loading arduino IDE, saving a temp file, opening another program and burning the firmware. Smoothie looks to a config file that a text editor can change, then simply reset. Much easier for day to day use. I think the smoothie support is pretty good. They have a google groups, as well as good documentation and generally good drivers. It isn't a fair comparison, but the smoothie was so much easier to set up the endstops, motors, etc. I was brand new to arduino when I got a printrboard (which I think still requires some work to even get recognized in the arduino IDE).
Ramps would probably be much the same, but if I had to get another board I'd get an x5 in a heartbeat.
Tridprinting sells the azteeg x5, but panucatt shipped mine out fast. I think they make quality products in comparison to the wide variety of quality on ebay with ramps, etc. Ramps can be cheaper, but having some experience I'll gladly pay $20-50 more to never have to flash a printrboard again. That said, once set up, you probably don't need to adjust the firmware all that much. If you want to do it cheap, you can, but my time is worth a little bit of money (and sanity).
Ramps would probably be much the same, but if I had to get another board I'd get an x5 in a heartbeat.
Tridprinting sells the azteeg x5, but panucatt shipped mine out fast. I think they make quality products in comparison to the wide variety of quality on ebay with ramps, etc. Ramps can be cheaper, but having some experience I'll gladly pay $20-50 more to never have to flash a printrboard again. That said, once set up, you probably don't need to adjust the firmware all that much. If you want to do it cheap, you can, but my time is worth a little bit of money (and sanity).
