Prusa i3 Where Are You?

I am not talking just about the looks of the printer. Remember you need to think outside of the box and the box is not just the hardware that makes up RepRap it is also the software and the attitude/outlook of just going along to get along when I know we could strive to do better.

At least this isn't the stoic CNC crowd who have their collective heads up their you know what as they are still stuck using old computers and antiquated operating systems to get their stuff to work and they like it like that. Yes, I had a huge fight with a bunch of them but, as I said, they are stoic so it was a lost cause to get them to understand they need software (Mach3 is antiquated and the original designer retired 4 years ago now) that works on a 64 bit OS and on hardware that is not a IEEE1284 port. 32 bit OS and a printer port is so 80's and 90's when we have machines running around with 8 to 64 gigs of ram and USB 2/3 and Firewire.

So, I know to expect more out of this community than over there which means thinking larger and looking at the big picture.

Dark Alchemist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am not talking just about the looks of the
> printer. Remember you need to think outside of
> the box and the box is not just the hardware that
> makes up RepRap it is also the software and the
> attitude/outlook of just going along to get along
> when I know we could strive to do better.
>
> At least this isn't the stoic CNC crowd who have
> their collective heads up their you know what as
> they are still stuck using old computers and
> antiquated operating systems to get their stuff to
> work and they like it like that. Yes, I had a
> huge fight with a bunch of them but, as I said,
> they are stoic so it was a lost cause to get them
> to understand they need software (Mach3 is
> antiquated and the original designer retired 4
> years ago now) that works on a 64 bit OS and on
> hardware that is not a IEEE1284 port. 32 bit OS
> and a printer port is so 80's and 90's when we
> have machines running around with 8 to 64 gigs of
> ram and USB 2/3 and Firewire.
>
> So, I know to expect more out of this community
> than over there which means thinking larger and
> looking at the big picture.


Haha yeah,

The SeeMeCNC folks were/are still stuck in old school CNC mode. Their first RepRap Kit offerd only an old school CNC controller. They are using a RAMPS board just now finally.

The SeeMECNC folks are missing a certain... je ne se qua. They could easily bust onto this scene with they their nice/cheap extrusion molded RepRap kits but they are (in my opinion) not friendly with their customers, and provide very poor instructions for assembling their machines.

What a missed opportunity.

(Poor IndieGoGo Campaign managment too (IMHO))

"je ne sais quoi" is right and it isn't just those folks. Heck, I had them curse me on another forum and I was brand new and it was the old 4k + posters cursing at me. I reported them immediately, which I don't normally do but they deserved it, and the mod swooped down within 10 mins and removed the posts cursing me and locked the thread. So, I no longer post over there after 3 or 4 posts (same thread that was locked) and they must do that a bunch to people if the mod came down that quickly, lol.

Anyway, I believe each has its place but being stoic is not the vibes I get out of this community. We each like to experiment and make the RepRap stuff better and attach it to newer technology whereas they are happy living in 1985. The funny thing is that when you attach a CNC to an Arduino so you can use the USB port the mm per second for the CNC doubles but they want no part of that. Now what can we do to double our rates?

I see we have 3 main issues with all of this:

#1 Speed of printing is still too slow (come on 17+ hours I have seen some take).
#2 Curling
#3 Lack of print bed space to make anything that really would sting the corporations.

Fix #1 and #2 and #3 will be easy to fix.

What would happen if I printed a fender for my car then sanded it, primed it then painted it? No need for a junk yard and gratification I did it myself but I could never do that right now because the fender is a thin wall piece (I estimate 1 to 2mm thick at most) and I have no idea how you would glue that together and have it take road weqar and tear and these horrible pot holes.

Quote

(Mach3 is antiquated and the original designer retired 4 years ago now) t

You've used this example before, but it's a bad one.
The reason Mach3 is still used is that despite all the flaws and pain finding compatible hardware, it makes running a CNC machine easier than the alternatives.
EMC2 might be a better motion controller, but I have machines running both and I can tell you that using Mach to run a mill is much better. You can't compare producing something on a mill to producing something on a 3D Printer, mills are as much about about job setup time as they are about cutting, not having to go to a CAM package to cut a simple pocket is what makes Mach valuable. Things are a little more murky with cheap CNC routers and I'm not sure it has the value add there to justify the cost/inconvenience.

If you don't want to use the parallel port there are many motion controllers that work with Mach or EMC, pick one and use that, if your comparing on a purely technological level a SmoothStepper or KFlop are far better motion controllers than the Arduinos used in printers (show me an arduino that can generate 4MHz pulse train), but they are also gross overkill for use on a printer.

My point I guess is that they are different worlds and although the basic requirements are similar there are enough differences to justify independent solutions.

Polygonhell Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> (Mach3 is antiquated and the original designer
> retired 4 years ago now) t
>
> You've used this example before, but it's a bad
> one.
> The reason Mach3 is still used is that despite all
> the flaws and pain finding compatible hardware, it
> makes running a CNC machine easier than the
> alternatives.
> EMC2 might be a better motion controller, but I
> have machines running both and I can tell you that
> using Mach to run a mill is much better. You can't
> compare producing something on a mill to producing
> something on a 3D Printer, mills are as much about
> about job setup time as they are about cutting,
> not having to go to a CAM package to cut a simple
> pocket is what makes Mach valuable. Things are a
> little more murky with cheap CNC routers and I'm
> not sure it has the value add there to justify the
> cost/inconvenience.
>
> If you don't want to use the parallel port there
> are many motion controllers that work with Mach or
> EMC, pick one and use that, if your comparing on a
> purely technological level a SmoothStepper or
> KFlop are far better motion controllers than the
> Arduinos used in printers (show me an arduino that
> can generate 4MHz pulse train), but they are also
> gross overkill for use on a printer.
>
> My point I guess is that they are different worlds
> and although the basic requirements are similar
> there are enough differences to justify
> independent solutions.
My point is that the lazy [bleep] who make/made Mach 3 need to get off of their collective butts and revise it to work with the modern equipment. If they can't do that then it needs to be left behind and something better to come out. Sure, it was great circa 1995 but this is the 21st century so move on up to what we have now by not forcing people to grab antiquated machines and antiquated operating systems just to run it OR having to resort to yet another piece of something to compensate for its lacks.

That is, and will always be, my point.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2012 03:41PM by Dark Alchemist.

If you think you can do better, it's a free market, and there are other vendors out there, but Mach fills a price/performance niche.
I know a lot of people who swear by flash cut, I've never used it, and I think any external motion controller for a big machine tool needs to be an ethernet device, not a USB device because of the inherent noise issues with USB.
And Mach3 will run on modern hardware under Windows 7 if you buy a 3rd party motion controller for it, just like EMC2. The only thing that does not run on 64 bit versions of windows is the parallel port driver.

If they don't "need" to revise anything, though I do think Mach3 could be a lot better, and there is a potential business opportunity developing software in that space, I just don't think they move enough units to make a lot of money at their price point.

Poly, that attitude of "if you think yadda yadda" is just a cop out. I do agree USB is only a stop gap as not everyone has an ethernet switch but USB 3.0 is supposed to have more RFI protection but I don't have it so I don't know about that part.

Every new machine made is 64 bits that I see any where in the stores so demanding that the people who want to run a CNC need to buy old crap because the Mach3 programmers are stupid, lazy or both is unacceptable. Another simple fact is try buying even a mobo with a parallel port on it these days. Rare indeed since NOTHING in the computer world uses it anymore. I know for a fact that creating a driver that works in 64 bits is not a small task but we, we as in programmers who do this crap for a living, had to do when we saw the writing on the wall almost a decade ago now when XP 64 hit and Microsoft let us in on Vista 64 coming. Driver making is a pita and requires knowledge of the 64 bit architecture as well as X86 64 bit ASM but Mach 3 is happily sitting there catering to a bunch of old codgers happy to continue to live like a bunch of Luddites. Hence, them all being stoic.

So, I am not into having to buy more crap, after buying their crap, just to get something to work because of some stupid behind the scenes nonsense. Get the GD thing right and move it into the present or move out of the way but the problem is that the stoic machinists are happy living in their simple sheltered lives because if it works then don't mess with it not realizing technology is passing them by but eventually these stoic machinist will die off and their old POS computers will be passed down and people will not be able to get any parts for them. By them maybe we will see Mach4 or something else.

I will not budge on my opinion in this matter nor my opinion about the programmers over there because I know.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2012 06:03PM by Dark Alchemist.

Clearly you've written them off, and I don't have a horse in the race, I use it because everything else sucks more.
IMO They don't force you to use parallel port, they give you the option if you want to deal with the pain and save the $150 a motion controller will cost you.

As I said above it's a bit of a red herring to compare Mach3 to Reprap software, they are fundamentally different other than both providing motion control.

Well, if both has X,Y,Z motion control you don't see the similarity? Yes, one is additive and one is subtractive but that is neither here nor there for this comparison and, btw, I was only bringing them up because we in the reprap community are always changing our machines to make them better in whatever fashion but I never once saw a CNC person do that. Once they have it all installed they are done. A tiny few do try and get it to go faster but overwhelmingly the majority just sit there with what they have, and/or are given. There is a huge difference between the two groups and I equate one as a stone and chisel group (Luddites) and the other a computer and technology driven group (the Technos).

Now, why can't the two groups merge? Stoic and really I say that not in a 100% derogatory manner because it is one the Navy in 1940's and 1950's used to use for their Machinists because once a Machinist has learned something they don't like learning something new and they live by the old adage of "if it isn't broken don't fix it". The Navy spent hundreds of thousands of dollar retraining their crews with films that were so basic (remember most barely had a HS education and most only around 7th grade) that they are actually extremely good learning tools even today (some can be found on Youtube). Not much has changed in these 60-70 years but technology has.

Could you produce a piece of software that was good for both parties absolutely, Mach is fine as a printer controller if you want to spend the money whatever the Mach license is + your motion controller. It's massive overkill for a device where for the most part you load the GCode file and press go.

You could run a mill off the reprap solutions with modifications, there are limitations in the current firmwares, the Host software is incredibly inadequate today for running a mill, because on a printer you just load the GCode and go, and mills aren't like that.

This isn't about machinists being stuck in the past (though I'm sure plenty are), the Reprap community could have selected EMC years ago, they didn't because it didn't fit in with their constraints and goals.

Yes they are both pieces of motion control software, but the user experience of running a mill vs the user experience of running printer are completely different.
The motion control has to be there but it isn't sufficient. If it was all about the best motion control software everyone would run EMC2.
What makes Mach a useful tool for machining is it has adequate motion control and it accommodates to the needs of someone operating the milll. CNC mills for all their additional functionality make a lot of otherwise simple machining operations much more complicated than there manual brethren, Mach closes the gap on a lot of that stuff.

Aren't both projects more or less based off ports of the EMC motion control code at somepoint in the past anyway?

FWIW I'm not a professional machinist, I'm a software developer, I use my mill as a tool for various ongoing hobby projects.

All I am saying is that when a newbie hits the CNC world, as I was, you are slammed up against a wall and your pants pulled down while Mach3 is shoved into every orifice you have. Ahhh, Mach3 must be good because everyone says it is so I will use this modern computer to run the Mach3 that will run my CNC equipment. Nope, failure, because your machine is on Vista, Windows7, or 8, and is 64 bits. Well, wtf?!? A new person screams that as they hit the brick wall of Mach3's ability due to its age. So, they head to the various forums to see wth is up and are told you need even more stuff because Mach3 is the messiah of the CNC world and all must bow down to it and give it nightly offerings lest it gets angry and crashes your drill into your surface.

Mach3 had its day and it needs to be updated so it will work in a 64 bit world and work with another port besides the IEEE-1284 archaic port WITHOUT the need of something external.

As i see it both forums seem to have a degree of this Stoic when it comes to certain things,

between the boards(ramps/sanguinololu) and the software(emc2 and mach3) in both groups there is this interesting bias in favour towards certain things/products
while at the same time the solutions to 98% of all the problems people getting into the reprap or building their own cnc machinery face just sits there stale in development and utilized by the few really technically savy and genuinely interested in developing it anything further,

the issues with USB and noise in my experience (and im biased towards it), have got more to do with the design of almost all the boards that have been designed and built for the reprap/printrbot/makerbot there is a lot the reprap community could/should learn from and adapt from the people at cnczone and there is a lot the people over there could/should learn from this group, both have solutions that could easily solve almost all the problems both groups have

such as simply putting some kind of optical isolation on the ramps and sanguinololu boards to eliminate noise problems,
if someone went to that forum and asked for an opinion on the boards and their general design and layout one of the very first things to be suggested would be optical isolation of the logic and arduino circuit from the stepper drivers, the second would be to get away from the use of what is fundamentally a breakout board for a stepper driver and not something never intended for a product

the one rule these forums needs the compulsory declaration in the members signature that they either work for or own/run a business (even a small one) that sells/manufactures products commonly used by the reprap/cnc community
"declare their own bias"

the open source principal has it's merits, but they all go out the window when professional advice in the interests of the projects are ignored in favour of making money - i believe this is exactly what the reprap project is now a victim of and sadily the original goals are now ignored and steered away from

thejollygrimreaper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As i see it both forums seem to have a degree of
> this Stoic when it comes to certain things,
>
> between the boards(ramps/sanguinololu) and the
> software(emc2 and mach3) in both groups there is
> this interesting bias in favour towards certain
> things/products
> while at the same time the solutions to 98% of all
> the problems people getting into the reprap or
> building their own cnc machinery face just sits
> there stale in development and utilized by the few
> really technically savy and genuinely interested
> in developing it anything further,
>
> the issues with USB and noise in my experience
> (and im biased towards it), have got more to do
> with the design of almost all the boards that have
> been designed and built for the
> reprap/printrbot/makerbot there is a lot the
> reprap community could/should learn from and adapt
> from the people at cnczone and there is a lot the
> people over there could/should learn from this
> group, both have solutions that could easily solve
> almost all the problems both groups have
>
> such as simply putting some kind of optical
> isolation on the ramps and sanguinololu boards to
> eliminate noise problems,
> if someone went to that forum and asked for an
> opinion on the boards and their general design and
> layout one of the very first things to be
> suggested would be optical isolation of the logic
> and arduino circuit from the stepper drivers, the
> second would be to get away from the use of what
> is fundamentally a breakout board for a stepper
> driver and not something never intended for a
> product
>
> the one rule these forums needs the compulsory
> declaration in the members signature that they
> either work for or own/run a business (even a
> small one) that sells/manufactures products
> commonly used by the reprap/cnc community
> "declare their own bias"
>
> the open source principal has it's merits, but
> they all go out the window when professional
> advice in the interests of the projects are
> ignored in favour of making money - i believe this
> is exactly what the reprap project is now a victim
> of and sadily the original goals are now ignored
> and steered away from
You make a lot of sense my friend and very sadly I must agree with your last sentiments. If you look back to 2008/9 and RepRap and compare it to now there is a HUGE change. Sort of like the hacker mentality to Linux and what Linux has become. I suppose as something ages it loses that unique hacker mentality and the bigger boys move in for the dollar kill.

sadily it's how a lot of these projects go,

I might start a new thread about the "Declaration of Business Bias" and see if i can get it made into a rule i suspect i will be unsuccessful,controversial and the idea probably shouted down, but i think it's worth the effort , people who are new to the reprap project deserve something closer to unbiased advice than what is currently the practice

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2012 09:35PM by thejollygrimreaper.

thejollygrimreaper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> sadily it's how a lot of these projects go,
>
> I might start a new thread about the "Declaration
> of Business Bias" and see if i can get it made
> into a rule i suspect i will be
> unsuccessful,controversial and the idea probably
> shouted down, but i think it's worth the effort ,
> people who are new to the reprap project deserve
> something closer to unbiased advice than what is
> currently the practice
You have my vote for this as I really think it is needed. Turn on the lights, so to speak, and watch the roaches scurry away.

i've started the thread , que the controversy

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No Mach3 nor EMC2 was used here. Just Marlin, and Arduino Mega and Pronterface. Higher current drivers were used though, as Pololus are a bit short for these speeds/load.

I am a CNC guy and I feel that it has been misrepresented here. CNC has some of the most complex, accurate and fastest machines on the planet. You have greatly overstated the prominence of mach3, there are many other controllers available.

My personal favourite is the KFlop ( [dynomotion.com] ) which has a 1.2Gflop DSP, native 64-bit math and an FPGA.

Honestly, when I first heard that 3d printers were using arduinos to interpret g-code I thought it was a joke. Modern motion controllers can do acceleration/jerk with 50+ step lookahead and execute tens of thousands of lines per second. Spend another 2$ for a 32 bit arm and do the math properly instead of trying to jam a g-code interpreter on the crappiest microcontroller available.

I disagree with your stance about Mach3 because you just run around the hobbyist forums (meaning anything non professional) and you will get, like I did in spades, to go get Mach3 and run it on some of the most antiquated pieces of dung to hit the planet. Oh, they were great machines 8-12 years ago but this is 2012 not 2000. Go preach to your fellow CNC people to shut up about Mach3 and having to use IEEE-1284 ports with it (which don't even come with computers stock nor on the mobo stock these days) and that you can't use a 64 bit OS with it because the programmers are lazy (the original designer of Mach3 retired around Janurary 2008 from it all) because it seems they need to be enlightened.

Arduino is a great microcontroller so I sense a little bias on your part about the Arduino but I also agree with you since most Arduinos are slow as hell and only 8 bits yet are being used in an environment that demands precision.

As far as that Kflop goes it really is a nice piece of hardware but for a CNC there is no way I would want to use USB as ETHERNET really is the way to go with all of that electrical noise flying around but that is just my preference.

[smoothieware.org] <-3d printers are getting there and that board will be slightly cheaper than running around buying everything separately, and sure takes up a lot less workspace, but is not yet 64 bits.

So, as I said, tell the people on the BIG cnc forums (I am sure you know the ones I am talking about) that the world does not revolve around Mach3 with 32 bit OSes only and must have an IEEE-1284 printer port.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2012 12:27AM by Dark Alchemist.

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

Quote
Spend another 2$ for a 32 bit arm and do the math properly instead of trying to jam a g-code interpreter on the crappiest microcontroller available.

That is exactly what Kiliment did with 4PI ..

misan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
>
> That is exactly what Kiliment did with 4PI ..
I went to Google to search for 4pi 3dprinter and ended up [0xfb.com] I clicked and it FF 16.0.1 said it was an attack site. I disregarded the message and it was a site selling it for 168 euro not an attack site. :/

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

It is available from several on-line shops: [xyzprinters.com] [reprapsource.com]

These are known not to be an attack site :-)

You can get both schematics/pcb and firmware from Kliment's gihub: [github.com]

Cool, but how does it compare to the link I gave for the smoothie?

---

_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

I think Smoothieboard is not well suited to heatedbed typical consumption values. It's only 6A max and only two ouptuts (so you cannot have fan, hotend and heated bed). Other than that it is a nice little board, apparently way cheaper than 4PI.


On the other hand, while 4PI is available now in several shops, it is unclear whether you can buy Smoothieboard or it is not yet released.


Edit: Oops, I read on and I learned there is a provision for higher current mosfets in the Smoothieboard too. So what I said was not really accurate.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2012 06:21AM by misan.

So is the Prusa i3 actually out or not? The build instructions are vague and unfinished. I can't tell what kind of coupling is used on the z-axis. Also, the special "Prusa Nozzel" does not exist yet...

Is it still in some kind of beta phase?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2013 05:39PM by Idolcrasher.

Prusa is said he is not very good at doc writing, or rather someone said it on irc and he didn't say a peep to dispute it. Now I can understand as I have always sucked at documentation writing too but I always hire, or befriend someone, to do the docs for me and I will proof read them to be sure they are accurate and if not they will revise. Josef needs to buy a clue about that as I am sure someone in the community could do it for him.

The I3 is out there in a dream. It is more expensive to make than the i2 but shouldn't be but is because of the lack of documentation that is keeping people from doing the RP or mechanical kits.

Here is a series done by ikilledkenny [www.youtube.com] (it is a multi part series) and he manged to hobble one together but we should NOT have to suffer to build anything since the documentation is part of the entire process.

I asked on irc about the i3 and most people are staying away from it and instead doing the M90. Fact is I was told that Josef didn't start on his I3 until the day of the release of the M90 and it really is just a wooden M90. I asked then why isn't it called a M90a or something and I was told, rather quickly might I add, then it couldn't have his name on it and he does have a huge ego. *shrug*

His hotend just looks so tight and well polished so I hope that is finally released.

---

_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

Dark Alchemist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is a series done by ikilledkenny
> [www.youtube.com] (it is
> a multi part series) and he manged to hobble one
> together but we should NOT have to suffer to build
> anything since the documentation is part of the
> entire process.

I guess HE better use HIS time and go write some better documentation so "WE" don't have to suffer? Nice entitlement attitude there.

billyzelsnack Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dark Alchemist Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Here is a series done by ikilledkenny
> > [www.youtube.com] (it
> is
> > a multi part series) and he manged to hobble
> one
> > together but we should NOT have to suffer to
> build
> > anything since the documentation is part of the
> > entire process.
>
> I guess HE better use HIS time and go write some
> better documentation so "WE" don't have to suffer?
> Nice entitlement attitude there.

Well, you tell me who better to write the information than the creator? Sort of like asking someone to write a manual to a Ford instead of getting Ford to who sticks the manual in your glove compartment when you buy the vehicle AND making money from it doesn't have one damn thing to do with it either. So, I let you answer the first question...who better to write the documentation than its creator who released it to the general public? Who, WHO?

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

Sort of NOT AT ALL like Ford writing a manual.

A guy on the internet invested a shit ton of HIS time, HIS expertise, and HIS dollars into making a machine and then put the files up for everyone and you're complaining about YOUR suffering because he didn't give you enough? Get your sense of entitlement in check.

Who better than the creator to write documentation? Geez. Very often the creator is the worst possible person to write documentation. Have you seen the Prusa Mendel visual manual? It's amazing and Josef didn't write it.
[garyhodgson.com]