Hey, thanks for the comment and vid.
I did see that video before, looks to be a practical method. I did buy a bigger supply (20A) and the heated plate itself, but I couldn't get it working.
I soldered it up as I saw in some videos and I reinstalled the firmware and checked the boxes in Cura. The display read as though it recognized the heated bed, but it didn't heat up. So I was a little disappointed.
I have been printing on my newer model recently. The Tevo Tarantula.
I understand:
I had a look to the video for the heated bed : the size of the transistor on the micromake board for the heated bed is kind of scary for me. It is safer to go with an external mosfet or a DC/DC FSR.
If the heat bed does not draw too much current, it will take a lot of time to put it in temperature, to help this you can put some thermal insulator under it (I had the issue on my first 3D Printer with its massive 100W PSU :))
I did check it with a multimeter and I wasn't getting any voltage out of the pins that supplied the heat bed, even though the display had changed on the LCD to let me know it recognized there was a heat bed attached. The only thing I can think it could be is some part of the circuitry has blown.
I did look into getting a mofset, but since there was no current coming through the pins it would be pointless to do so. I may try and replace the component that appeared to broken on my board at some point, but I have been primarily tinkering with the taranula.
My understanding of DC PCB components is not brilliant. I work with AC, but many of the DC components appear to be of similar function.