RepRap Medel Mono Pro wont print

I’m using Linux and running pronterface in the terminal, everything worked great, then walked away for a couple months and now wont print, it just sits there forever, however I can control everything using the interface. pronterface also seams very unstable (It seams it would be a cool feature if pronterface had a problem it would tell you about it other than just sitting there forever doing nothing). Sometimes when I load it I have to select detect printer twice, sometimes it wont work at all, sometimes the temp is displayed and doesn't reach the target. But worst of all I hit print and it sits there forever(Even tough the temp has reached the target). I'm a total noob and lost! I downloaded new .stl files to try but still nothing. Even when it did work the interface was unstable, I can't even shut down the interface without my computer locking up. I know I just dumped a but load, or for you in the UK an Arse load of problems, but any help would be appreciated.

At least when i slice it with slic3r it needs to first reach the bed temp, then the hot end temp. If the PID settings are wrong, warming up can take forever. Store what M503 says and M301 controls the values for the hot end and M304 for the bed. Dont know exactly how PID works. But if not heating up is the problem, probably you need to increase the P term. (page about gcodes)

About it not connecting, when you reset, and the program is still trying to use `/dev/ttyUSB0`, the electronics registers under `/dev/ttyUSB1` instead.(and so forth if that one is taken too) (it'd be handy if the program just detected which one it was from a list) Just a possibility though.

Which version of pronterface?(hrmm there is no 'about' button with the version on mine) What are you slicing with? The pronterface interface itself?

I have no idea what version I'm using there is no about button in mine, but it is the same version that worked a couple months ago. The thing about the temps is sometimes the temps come up fine so the values should be ok, it just seams the interface is unstable it did the same things in the past but if I kept restarting the interface it would eventually at least print. And yes I'm slicing with pronterface interface itself.

I dont seam to have a dependency wxpython described in the github, but cant figure out how to install it because the source for 12.04 - precise dosnt exist yet, think this may be the problem any ideas anyone?

In a terminal window, type:
sudo apt-get install python-serial python-wxgtk2.8 python-pyglet python-tk

This should install all the dependencies you need.

Wow, thanks that did the trick, but told me everything was at the newest version and installed. So much for that. This is very strange was hoping it was a software problem, the printer has been sitting covered on a table with nothing changed, the only thing that changed was many updates to my Linux. Anybody have any ideas how to tackle this?
Thanks everyone for your help so far!
Dave

downloaded new pronterface, but didnt help.

I suspect there are flaws in design or firmware of the controller.
Problem seamed to be caused by USB connection. The following actions made it work, with doing everything it is work pretty good.
1. Used shortest heavy'ist shielded cable I had.
2. Unplug all other USB devices.
3. Type sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
4. Clean USB connectors with contact cleaner and Deoxit.
5. Print from SD card.

After all that have been able to use printer again, also ordered new USB cable with heavy shielding and gold plated connectors.

virgodave61 Wrote:
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> I suspect there are flaws in design or firmware of the controller.
I don't see anything that you did had anything to do with the design or firmware. All you did was get rid of oxidisation on the USB contacts, and remove other sources of electrical noise. If you were able to print before, you had already added yourself to the dialout group. Unless some update had removed that, or you reinstalled Ubuntu at some point in the last couple of months. But congrats for getting going again!

My point about the design and firmware is two fold. First of all pronterface doesn't care if it looses serial communication, it never checks it except at the time of the actual connect process, this is a programing flaw. Secondly I have used 100's of USB devices on my computer without problems, but my controller is flakey communication is lost regularly and cannot establish it without a complete reboot and powering down the printer, this has to be a design flaw of some kind, either firmware, or the actual design of the interface (ie. Needs missing pullup resistor or something). I used to work repairing ultrasound equipment and we had a model released we used to call the Ultralock-8 and most of its problems where do to a poorly engineered power distribution system creating excessive noise and it could have a problem there also. You are correct I did nothing yet with the firmware,power, or design, this is for the future I just focused on doing what I could to quickly get something to print. The dialoutgroup I did twice the second time I did it, it told me I already was with the dialout group, but the first time it didn't which may be strange because it worked before, but have done many 100's of MB of updates perhaps that messed something up.

ATX (and some other) power supplies have GND connected to Protective terminal of wall socket, if this is the case for both computer and printer power supplies, it may cause ground loop and differential current to flow through USB cable. This may both clutter communication and trigger over current protection of USB port. Thus connecting printer and computer to the same wall socket may help to reduce this problem, also check for voltage drop along your printer power supply GND wires.

Have you rechecked for for printer controller devname after communication error? Sometimes board reconnects with different (in/decremented) devname, for example: /dev/ttyUSB0 becomes /dev/ttyUSB1. Also try checking dmesg.

Thanks for your input will check these things