Im a noob and need some help for better understanding

Hey guys

Thanks in advance for sharing information and answering my questions.


I have a 3dstuffmaker printer, its the evolution 200 x 200 x 200 build area, new, unused, just not working, not connecting
My motor must of been turned when un boxxing or somthing, but it frizzed firmware or bootstrapper...

So i have been advised by 3dstuffmaker to upload a hex file sent by them, reflash it to get it working.
They are taking such a long time to get back to me and i got the AVR device today to reflash it

Anyway my question is, can i use other software, other firmware, and use more up to date software with my printer?
3dstuffmaker uses redsnapper, downloaded other printer software and all the others seem to have a much nicer interface.

IF i was to upload other firmware, Do i then have to re calibrate the machine ?
is this why they send me a specific hex file because this has all the printers set parameters calibrated for my specific printer?



The pcb, is a GEN 6, and im about to upload pics of the printer and board so you guys know what stuff i have

Turning the motors should not be able to damage the firmware or bootloader, unless there is something wrong with the board. If the bootloader is indeed damaged you will need to fix that first. See [reprap.org] . They are talking about using a USBTiny, but it should work similarly with a different programming device.

After that you do not need the programmer anymore, as the bootloader allows the chip to be programmed directly over USB. You can use any firmware you want. See [reprap.org] .

You do not need to use RepSnapper. Any of the other available RepRap software will work, such as Repetier Host, Printrun, etc.

I do not know why they are trying to send you a hex file. It is useless because it cannot be easily modified.

Thanks for your reply cameron,

From my understanding, the bootstrapper is bricked, that is why i need to reflash it,

They had stickers all over it to not move the motors when you get it,
so im assuming they have it setup in a way to not protect it,

They said it was an xray machine in customs that ruined it, but i dont believe it, its more likely the motor got moved while i unpacked it.
because it was already assembled, it had a crazy amount of packing that took me 30 mins to get out of the box and unwrap!!!

i was excited so i prob moved the motor unpacking it.



So, What would you do? Do i download firmware and try to program this thing with othersoftware, or wait for 3dstuffmaker to get back to me.. when ever they do.. they seem to have stopped talking to me frequently after i have requested for the HEX file.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2012 10:41PM by nechaus.

Im going to try and upload other firmware,

What will i need to calibrate?

You will need to calibrate the steps per mm for each axis, including the extruder. See:
[calculator.josefprusa.cz]
[reprap.org]

For the rest you can pretty much follow the instructions in the config file, there will be a setting for Gen6, etc. I'm not sure what all 3dstuffmaker uses as far as thermistors, do they tell you any of that?

No, they tell me limited information.


hmm, after looking at that calculator, i dont think i have enough info.. plus i do not know what it all mean

I have thermistors i use in my ebikes, but i dont want to have to replace anything on this printer just yet
it was meant to be ready to go out of the box...
so ill just wait for them to send me their HEX file,

Yesterday i emailed them asking for it, 2 hours later i get a so called auto reply saying they are on holidays will be back today.

Emailed them 4 times today hour after each one, no reply

nechaus Wrote:
> I have a 3dstuffmaker printer, its the evolution
> 200 x 200 x 200 build area, new, unused, just not
> working, not connecting
> My motor must of been turned when un boxxing or
> somthing, but it frizzed firmware or
> bootstrapper...

I also got a 3d printer from 3dstuffmaker. It didn't seem to have been loaded with a bootloader at all, which makes re-flashing with a different firmware considerably more difficult than it should be. I ended up buying a USBtiny to reflash to repetier, and now have an EEPROM that I can modify to change a bunch of different useful things.

Anyway, the firmware I was provided with only worked well with the 'repsnapper' program (it's in the Debian repository, just in case you're using Debian or Ubuntu, or available). The baud rate was 19200 (considerably slower than what seems to be recommended), and I connected to /dev/ttyUSB0 to talk to the device. You may also need FTDI drivers (Windows drivers were provided to me by 3dstuffmaker, but I needed to get the Linux ones from [www.ftdichip.com]).

Unfortunately, until you get things right, there's not any feedback to tell you what is going wrong, or even if the board is working at all. I got lucky using avrdude with avrispv2 in extremely verbose mode (-vvvv), and noticed that I was getting english as responses only at baud rate 19200.