Reprap Host 0.8.3 released

I've "packaged" (as .zip files) the Reprap host code tonight and tested it on:

(1) Ubuntu 7.04 (NullCartesian as PC has no serial port and I lack a USB->Serial widget),
(2) Ubuntu 7.10, and
(3) Windows XP

The last two were both tested with real Reprap electronics, as far as the Stepper Exerciser being able to talk to each of my X Y and Z axis boards appropriately.

The file most people will want is reprap-host-0.8.3.zip, available at

[downloads.sourceforge.net] [http://downloads.sourceforge.net/reprap/reprap-host-0.8.3.zip]

If I'm not too distracted by other things, I'd like to get a first public set of .debs and a first public Windows NSIS-based .exe installer released by the end of the month. This is a goal, not a promise :-)

NOTES:

(1) The big change as far as packaging goes in 0.8.3 is that it allows for the RXTX and Java3D and j3d.org libraries to be in a static place that is unaffected by JAVA_HOME, and so remains independent of which Java version you are running. This has been tested on both Linux and Windows, and is a large part of what has allowed progress on "real" installation packages to occur. If you already have the libraries installed under $JAVA_HOME/lib/ext, that's OK, we'll still find and use them from there.

(2) The reprap.properties file has changed a fair bit since 0.8.1, so if you want to easily see all the new properties, consider renaming your old reprap.properties file and then running the Reprap software -- it will generate you a new one with all the new things in it. But then you'll have to edit all your customizations back into the new one! You may get away with just going into File->Preferences, updating something insignificant, and Accepting the changes. That's not been extensively tested as an upgrade process, but it _should_ work :-)

Jonathan

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Jonathan

you should make a post on the blog too... its always good to show progress to the public as well.

> you should make a post on the blog too...
> its always good to show progress to the public as well.

Sure, can do ... but (a) which blog and (b) do I have write access to it?

Jonathan

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Jonathan

all releases of main reprap stuff should go on blog.reprap.org, and i'm not sure... i think so, but i'll double check.

A couple of minor points about Windows compatibility:

The README has Unix linefeeds, it's usual to have a readme.txt with Windows line feeds as well for Notepad.

# is not allowed as a comment in .bat files.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

nophead wrote:

> The README has Unix linefeeds, it's usual to have
> a readme.txt with Windows line feeds as well for
> Notepad.

Yes. Wordpad works with Unix line endings, though.
I've added a line to the packaging script to generate
a README.txt with CRLF line endings, so the next
release should include one.

> # is not allowed as a comment in .bat files.

Aargh! I changed all but one! Oh well, the chances
that someone will actually have a directory called

so we can find the reprap-wv.stl file. Can we avoid this??

are fairly small, fortunately :-)

This is fixed in Subversion now.

Thanks,

Jonathan

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Jonathan

It would be great if .deb packaging was finished this month as I'm hoping to start making the next LiveCD next month :-)

Thanks for the great work.

I actually got it to run this time, I have tried twice in the past and failed, although I did not try very hard.

It failed to find Java3D until I copied it to the latest jre. Is that correct? The release note gave me the impression it would now find the libraries.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

nophead wrote:

> I actually got it to run this time,

Cool:-)

> It failed to find Java3D until I copied it to the
> latest jre. Is that correct? The release note gave
> me the impression it would now find the libraries.

This release is in *preparation* for that. It works,
but there are no docs on where to put the libs for the
new approach, yet. For now, read the reprap-host script
and/or the reprap-host.bat file to see what I'm up to!
It won't find them "whereever", but if they are in a known
fixed place, that won't change per JRE, it finds them.

If you put the Java libs into %programfiles%\Java\shared
and the DLLs into anywhere on your %PATH% (I use %systemroot%\System32 )
it will now find them, so you don't have to figure out
where your JRE's home dir is and put stuff under it.

(For Linux, use /usr/share/java/ and /usr/lib/ )

In a couple of weeks I hope to release DEBs that put
stuff there for Linux, and a .exe that installs all
this stuff in the right places for Windows. Both of
these are at the "works for me" stage right now.

Jonathan

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Jonathan

Yes I should have read the batch file. I moved them to %programfiles%\Java\shared and all is well. I am only using the null build so I haven't bothered with the serial library.

Thanks.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

> I moved them to %programfiles%\Java\shared and all is well.

Great! Thanks for the feedback -- it's always good to know something
you write works on other people's systems too :-)

Jonathan

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Jonathan

I downloaded it this morning, just before heading to work. One thing I noticed is that it's much more robust in handling narrow regions and acute angles. I was getting a lot of null pointer exceptions and "resolution limit" messages with 0.8.1.

The ugliest STL I've got right now is a modded version of the diagonal tie bracket. It has all sorts of fiddly bits (technical term). The 0.8.1 app can't get past the first few layers without throwing a wobbler (another technical term). I ran the same file through 0.8.3 this morning and everything went smoothly. Very nice.

This weekend, I'll hook up the electronics and see how it does.

Steve DeGroof wrote:

> I downloaded it this morning, just before heading
> to work. One thing I noticed is that it's much
> more robust in handling narrow regions and acute
> angles. I was getting a lot of null pointer
> exceptions and "resolution limit" messages with
> 0.8.1.

Yes. Vik is doing great work in trying to print
various Reprap parts, finding issues, and throwing
them at Adrian, who fixes them :-) So, as Vik's
bucket of Reprap-printed Reprap parts grows, so
does the robustness of the software!

> The 0.8.1 app can't get past the first few layers ...
> I ran the same file through 0.8.3 this morning and
> everything went smoothly. Very nice.

Great!

> This weekend, I'll hook up the electronics and see
> how it does.

Yes, thanks. "Real world" feedback is very helpful,
whether of the "it works" or "I did *this* and it broke"
varieties!

As far as I can tell, Reprap Darwin is on track for a v1.0
release "sometime in 2008", as Adrian put it :-)

Jonathan

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Jonathan

Looks good. I was able to control the stepper motors and it correctly sensed room temperature. I didn't mess with the extruder, though.

A couple minor things I've noticed (they're also present in 0.8.1):

- The "line test" routine seems to move only one stepper. Either X or Y but not both at the same time.

- Seems to be a memory leak or something. If you keep doing build simulations, you eventually run out of memory. Not sure if it's the app itself, the 3D package, or something else.

And there's one other thing. I'm not sure if this was showing up on 0.8.1 or not but I'm seeing it with the new one. It looks like the last segment of each outline is missing. Seems to be doing it on curves, mostly. You can see it when printing minimug, for example. Hopefully that's just the display and it doesn't actually print that way.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2008 10:13PM by Steve DeGroof.

> - The "line test" routine seems to move only one
> stepper. Either X or Y but not both at the same
> time.

Ah, apparently it helps if you actually connect the sync lines. Oops.

The windows .bat file should NOT have the executable bit set. Windows looks at the extension anyway, and command line completion is a bit cleaner for us unix folks.

Unless some version of windows DOES need the executable bit set. I wouldn't think so, as it's a Unix file attribute, but I have no way of testing this.

jgilmore wrote:

> The windows .bat file should NOT have the
> executable bit set. Windows looks at the extension
> anyway, and command line completion is a bit
> cleaner for us unix folks.

Fair enough. Fixed in subversion.

Jonathan

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Jonathan

Thank you. saves me deleting it when I download a new version, and a bit of confusion for the new folks.

I noticed with the latest that there's a "reprap-host" and a "reprap-host.sh". This may also cause confusion. reprap-host.sh is the simple one-liner, and reprap-host has stuff for setting a custom classpath.

A custom classpath is going to be either distributed with the host software, or specific to an individual's setup. If the latter, we can combine the two startup files by commenting out the custom classpath stuff, since the individual will need to edit it to get it to work anyway. If the former, we should test for the existance of that directory.

I'd write it and cut'n'paste it here, but I don't have a custom classpath...

> A custom classpath is going to be either distributed with
> the host software, or specific to an individual's setup.
> If the latter, we can combine the two startup files by
> commenting out the custom classpath stuff, since the
> individual will need to edit it to get it to work anyway.
> If the former, we should test for the existance of that
> directory.

We could test for it. That classpath is used and populated
by both the .DEB files and the .EXE Windows installer. The
big benefit is that you can upgrade Java without breaking
the ability of the Reprap host code to find the libraries
it needs.

I don't expect many people will be installing from the .zip
for much longer, now we have "new, improved" packaging :-)

We could just leave the reprap-host one out of the .zip files,
if you think that would be beneficial??

Jonathan

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Jonathan