Switching to Marlin

Hi all,

I have been thinking of switching to Marlin from Sprinter to take advantage of accceleration.


When configuring sprinter, everything was really straightforward even for my inexperienced self. I felt like I understood it.

I wish I could say the same for Marlin. It is much more ambiguous in that I really don't know what to do in config-h once I get past the thermistor settings (which even had me slightly confused with the two extra sensor settings).

I figured that out easy enough, but then started to come across temp residency time and hysteresis? What the...

Still, I figured that those were settings I could leave alone for the time being.

Then I came across stuff that just seems to be proprietary to certain makes. Ultimaker and Makergear. I have to think that I don't have the correct Marlin.

Im using sfact, pronterface and sprinter currently.

My machine is a Prusa with Arduino Mega 2560, Ramps 1.3, pololu steppers and opto endstops. Also, I'm using a Budaschnozzle hot end and a PCB heated bed.


Any help would be appreciated. An "idiots guide to marlin" would be wonderful.

Thanks in advance for all of your help.

If you can get a copy of the NON-GEN6 Pre-Beta version, the setup is very similar to Sprinter. The Beta RC2, which I have been looking into this weekend is a bit different, and I'm not 100% sure the PID heating stuff will work for me out of the box.

Copy all the like for like settings from Sprinter then take your time reading through the other settings.

I made the transition this weekend and my prints look a lot cleaner and more fluid (circles are beautiful now).

---

My Reprap blog

jds-reprap.blogspot.com

jcabrer Wrote:
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> If you can get a copy of the NON-GEN6 Pre-Beta
> version, the setup is very similar to Sprinter.

jcabrer, This is what I thought may be the issue. I'll try to find this.

Joe, I tried what you were suggesting and found myself kind of lost in terminology that I'm
unfamiliar with, hence the request for an idiots guide.

I'll play with it some more, but I have no Idea what to do some of this stuff. For instance;

// Comment the following line to disable PID and enable bang-bang.

What the blank is BANG BANG? Sounds kinda personal.

In all seriousness, it's stuff like this that is tripping me up.

An even better example of "what the ---- do I do here is:


// If you are using a preconfigured hotend then you can use one of the value sets by uncommenting it
// Ultimaker
#define DEFAULT_Kp 22.2
#define DEFAULT_Ki (1.25*PID_dT)
#define DEFAULT_Kd (99/PID_dT)

// Makergear
// #define DEFAULT_Kp 7.0
// #define DEFAULT_Ki 0.1
// #define DEFAULT_Kd 12

// Mendel Parts V9 on 12V
// #define DEFAULT_Kp 63.0
// #define DEFAULT_Ki (2.25*PID_dT)
// #define DEFAULT_Kd (440/PID_dT)
#endif // PIDTEMP

Does a budashnozzle fit into a category above? Idk...

With the little aforementioned hurdles being what they are, I have only just glanced ahead to see what else may hang me up and I was "startled to death" at the // EEPROM section, haha! I'm an IDIOT!!

Should I just stick with sprinter? This version of Marlin really seems like it is specifically for use with an ultimaker or makergear device.

I'm sure this stuff is pretty obvious to many of you, but I humbly admit that this is not one of my strong areas. Thanks for understanding and I really do appreciate your help. I'm still printing with sprinter, but I know that Marlin will be an improvement.

P.S. I'll try to locate this elusive "non-gen 6, pre beta" version of marlin. Sounds like the answer to my probs.

Don't give up, its nice. Try IRC for help. There were a few things I had to do to get it working on my 1.3 RAMPS including messing with the the adv_Config.h.
Good luck

---

Camblonie
Repstrap -> Prusa
RAMPS 1.3, Merlin
3mm J-Head Nozzle

I've been running Marlin for a few months and the quality improvment over spinter is worth the effort. For some of the less obvious settings I did trial by error. For the most part I didn't mess with any settings I didn't understand.

As for PID settings: I'd leave it enabled as it does a better job of keeping your hot end temp where it needs to be. I would try the 3 available configurations and see which one keeps you temp most accurate. The mendel parts configuration works best for my J-head.

I recently upgraded to Marlin 1.0 and have it running fine on my prusa/ramps 1.3 with mechanical end stops. If you have fan you'll need to change the fan pin to 9.

I have a pre 1.0 version of Marlin on my computer if you'd like to try it

Miro, I may take you up on your older ver. I have two different versions right now. One is Marlin 1.0 and the other, a zip labeled "bkubicek-Marlin91202a8".

The second one (bkubicek) bears a closer resemblence to the sprinter that I have, but still seemed to either be missing some comments or had extra ones that I didn't recognize.

So far, I have only been attempting to configure it. I haven't actually tried flashing at all. I just want to feel confident about getting the basics correct before actually trying to run it.

Thanks again for the help

Here's my older version of Marlin. I don't have the original and I'm not sure when it was downloaded, so it's configured for my machine and I removed SD support because I could not get it to compile with it. You should just have to change your steps per mm and possibly disable pullup resistors for your optos, but I'm not sure about that. Everything should be the same for our 2 machines.

Good luck,
Micah

This is very kind of you I'll dig into it and let you know if it helps me.