LCD panel or Pronterface control, but not both

I have a Sanguino 1.3a with a Panelolu2 LCD panel. If I build Marlin without the LCD panel support (comment out the appropriate line) I can get pronterface to connect to the sanguino use it to manually move the axis motors and heat up the hot end/bed. But if I build Marlin for support of the LCD panel I can use the LCD panel to move the axis and things and pronterface displays feedback when I reset the board, but using the manual movements don't work (the console shows an error).

Are these supposed to be mutually exclusive? If I have the LCD panel do I have to use it and the SD card for printing and control? Or is there something wrong here?

Hi cobrageek

They are not supposed to be mutually exclusive - both should work. One caveat is that the manual controls within pronterface wont allow you to override an ongoing print (ie move the axis during a print) but they will allow you to chenge the temperature of the hotend, bed and enter other G-codes (such as M220 for setting the speed).

which version of Marlin are you using?

Regards

Tony

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DuetWifi.: advanced 3d printing electronics

Thanks Tony. I honestly can't figure out the version for Marlin other than "_v1". I downloaded it 2 weeks ago so it's fairly recent. Is there some file where I should find a version number?

Maybe pronterface thinks it is in the middle of a print or something because that could match the behavior. I haven't tried changing the temps but only using the manual controls to move the axis. Is there something I should do on the LCD panel controls to make sure it doesn't look like there is a print happening so I can run things from pronterface? (some kind of "end print" or something?) I'll try out some temp changes to see if that works form pronterface and if that doesn't work I'll keep debugging as to why it doesn't allow pronterface control.

thanks, Bret

Hi Bret

The more recent versions of Marlin should all support the Panelolu2 so its probably not that however it does not hurt to try the, now quite old, T3P3 version to rule out that as an issue (https://github.com/T3P3/Marlin) ensure you use LiquidTWI2 etc as I describe in the summary of this blog post (http://blog.think3dprint3d.com/2013/02/panelolu2.html) I guess you are doing all that if the display is working though.

Unless the printer is processing an SD print it should not hink its printing. Maybe you can email through your configuration.h for me to look at.

Cheers

Tony

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DuetWifi.: advanced 3d printing electronics

Thanks Tony. I'm guessing it's some silly pilot error causing the problem. I think I changed the baudrate to 230400 at the same time as I enabled the panelolu2 in config.h and when I saw communication come back in the console on pronterface after a reset I assumed the baudrate was fine (even though it's not a standard setting in pronterface as it skips from 115200 to 250000). I'll try putting the baudrate back down to 115200 and also take better notes on the error message that comes back into the console later today and maybe I can figure it out now that I know it's really supposed to be working. But I did attach my configuration.h file here just in case you had nothing better to do :-). Thanks for the assistance (and for developing such a cool LCD panel setup :-)) -- Bret

Hi Bret

Nothing jumps out about your display settings within configuration.h that baud rate is odd though so there is a chance that there is some weird interaction going on there that I have never seen before.

Cheers

Tony

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DuetWifi.: advanced 3d printing electronics

Thanks for checking it out Tony. It must've just been the buadrate confusion because after putting it back to 115200 I was able to get pronterface working fine with the Panelolu. I could do manual movements with either one and the printer would respond just fine.

But while I have your attention, let me ask another (hopefully) simple question. I found a little heat sink fan and rigged it up to cool off the shaft of the hot end. The fan has the normal 4 wires (yellow, black, green, blue) but says "5V 0.14A" on it. I'd like to hook this up to the panelolu2 sanguinololu adapter board transistor 1 so it can be controlled and adjusted with PWM, but that supplies 12V. I ran the fan for a few seconds directly at 12V and it didn't explode, so do you think it would be safe to hook up to the adapter board control and then sat all the fan speed settings in marlin to 100 or 110 instead of 255 (max)?

Also, which wires do I hook up to this? I assumed the Yellow to the main output and black to ground, but the green and blue are "sense" and "control" signals which I assume are for speed control in PC's but not used here?

Thanks for all the help Tony. -Bret

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2014 10:55AM by cobrageek.

Good news Bret
Without a lot of details and investigation I cannot categorically say it would be OK it would depend on the PWM speed vs the fan coil inductance. I would experiment, starting from a very low PWM setting, and monitor the fan temperature carefully over some time (or buy a 12V fan!) Pin out wise you would need to google that, most fans I use have black and red for gnd and voltage with yellow as sense!

Cheers

Tony

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DuetWifi.: advanced 3d printing electronics

Thanks Tony. I'll start with a small PWM value and see how things go. I picked up a second fan so I have a spare in case something goes wrong. I'm pretty sure I've got the wiring correct on the fan.

But the intended wiring from the panalolu2 is just to wire up the power and ground, right? So just ignore the sense and control wires.

I'll let you know how things go, but I'm guessing it will work OK as long as I can keep the fan speed reasonable. But I guess we'll see :-). Thanks for the help. - Bret

I wired it up last night and with settings of 50, 80 and 100 it seemed to function pretty well and didn't seem to be overheating. So with the correct settings in Slic3r I think it should be fine.

But I think I have a new idea. The fan I rigged up is focused on blowing through the vents in the J-head to keep the PLA cool until it hits the melting chamber. But I would also like to have something cooling the PLA after extrusion to help with overhangs and such. So I'm now thinking to wire my spare fan in series with the current one so each would drop 6V, much closer to the rated 5V anyway, then rig that one up to aim at the print platform. to cool the PLA right after extrusion.

What do you think? See any issues with running two 5V (0.14A) fans in series on the one 12V transistor from the panelolu2?

[Edit] - with the noisy inductance behavior of the fan motors, I really started to feel a little strange about running them in series. Probably better than the 12V overvoltage option, but still not great.
But after looking at the schematics again, it seems like I could just run a wire from the 5V pin that's on the adapter board and use that as the fan power instead of the 12V supply. The transistor would still draw the current through the fan and to ground so it seems like that would be a better, safer way to go. Then if I want to run two fans I can run them in parallel from the 5V source. See any issues with this option? Maybe drawing too much current form the 5V supply?

Thanks for the advice! --Bret

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2014 01:59PM by cobrageek.

Hi Bret

That may well work and the power certainly is not an issue, one work of caution though is that the hotend, printing PLA would normally way to be cooled at full power all the time, while blowing on the print is often controlled in a variable manner depending on what you are printing (bridges etc). I have not had issues blowing at the print all the time using PLA though.

To answer the second question about the 2 5V fans you would need to work out the current draw vs the current rating of the pin (nominally 1A) and the 12V-5V converter on board (not sure, would need to research that) If you are powering this setup from an ATX power supply you will have 5V from that to use and you could just have the fans as always on.

Cheers

Tony

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DuetWifi.: advanced 3d printing electronics

Thanks Tony. Interesting point about which fans should be on and which controlled. I ran across an extra 7805 in my junk pile and I think I'll stop being lazy and wire it up to the 12V signal (don't have an ATX supply) and use that to avoid any current limit issues on the sanguinololu regulator (powering the whole panelolu2). Then run the hot end fan directly to ground so it is always on and the bed fan to transistor 1 to get the full control. That will be the optimum setup and not much more work than what I was thinking anyway. Often it's better to just do it right the first time rather than cutting corners and having to redo it later :-). Thanks for the consultation.