Ok so I have gen 6 electronics and a dedicated laptop for my Prusa 2 (I have a good PC and dont use the laptop for anything anymore). I have google sketchup and am able to create STL files.

What other software do you prefer/recommend (as a complete set)? I have nothing installed for controlling the gen 6 electronics, nothing for slicing cad files, and nothing for anything else. The list of programs on wiki is a little overbearing with so many options. I want to get her up and running so I can start fine tuning and troubleshooting asap but have no idea what programs I need. Any input is appreciated!

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Ryan
Quality Engineer & Hobbyist
thingsandtrains.blogspot.com

Nowadays Slic3r and pronterface seems the winner duo.

However slic3r cannot do everything that skeinforge does yet, so you may have to use both. But start with slic3r, it's easier

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

For modelling programs you'd also want openscad to tweak prusa parts, and netfabb basic to repair broken stl files. I also recommend wings3d as a great mesh modeller and tool for cleaning up where netfabb fails.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

Agreed, Slic3r with Skienforge when slic3r doesn't cut it. Pronterface is great. Slic3r is very easy. Theres a great tutorial out there entitled Sic3r is Nicer, it'll give you the basics. (Doesn't cover some of the new changes, but should be enough to help you out.)

SFACT is a slimmed down version of Skeinforge and was a great introduction for me. Still a bit more complicated than Slic3r. SFACT will help to ease into Skeinforge. Also, the wiki for skeinforge/SFACT is pretty helpful when determining parameters. Under each menu (i.e dimension, clip, comb, etc) there is a question mark box, that'll bring up the wiki with an explanation of what the parameters of that menu do.

You may be able to get away with a host software that will slice too like Repsnapper, although I've never had good luck with it.

I have been using Repetier host and it has been working well with a Gen6 Deluxe board and Marlin firmware. Repetier has Slic3r built in and can be configured to use Skeinforge or a different version of Slic3r if you want. I do my slicing with Skeinforge because I've got it tuned so well for my Mendel.

Karl reminded me that the new Pronterface has slic3r built in as well in the precompiled version.

i've found that the latest version (0.70) of slic3r will handle virtually everything i throw at it. occasionally itll need a file to be run through repair, but that's no big deal. certainly not as painful as setting up skeinforge....

for a host i've been using repetier host. it supports marlin's eeprom firmware settings. that alone is enough for me... makes calibration trivial.

Thanks for the input so far! really has helped out. Power supply being wired up this weekend(it's all thats left to do).

Do I have to get some "firmware" or anything for gen 6 electronics? if so what do I do with it and how? I just read the builders/config/getting started section on wiki but it was talking about an arduino board not the gen 6.

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Ryan
Quality Engineer & Hobbyist
thingsandtrains.blogspot.com

If you bought the gen 6 board directly from mendel-parts then it might have firmware installed but it might not. I emailed them a few times but didn't get an answer. The gen 6 deluxe board I got from them didn't have anything installed on it. You can get the firmware here: [www.mendel-parts.com]
You'll probably have to change the DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT setting in the configuration.h file to match your Prusa.