Gen7 working with Marlin_v1

Following the demise of my Gen6 electronics, a fellow reprapper was kind enough to lend me his old, home etched and built Gen7 electronics. However, he had been having trouble with the Teacup firmware he had on it. I resolved to put Marlin on it, as this is what I had got used to on my Gen6, but it seems not many people have attempted this. I found SCUBA82's version [github.com] and tried it out, but couldn't get the motors to turn, and didn't know what to do about it. In the end, I turned to the reprap irc channel, [webchat.freenode.net] and someone there knew that the version of the Gen7 electronics that SCUBA82 uses is the 'Alphons3' version, which has support for LCD and manual buttons. This means that the pin.h file in the config is different. After a bit of playing around, hacking the pins assignment from the repetier firmware into SCUBA82's version of Marlin, I now have a fully working Gen7 1.2 board on Marlin!

Except... for the heated bed. The board had had problems with the heated bed mosfet melting, and the board's traces have been damaged in that area. It may be possible to bridge the area, but for the moment I have removed the mosfet. Fortunately, I have a separate heated bed controller. The board has successfully completed a trial run of some gcode that was causing all kinds of problems on my Gen6 board, so next step is to try it properly. I'm just trying to figure out a decent way of mounting it, as it is quite a lot larger than the Gen6.

I don't know specifically what was changed in SCUBA82's version of Marlin, but I found his thread (translated by google from the German part of the forum) here: [translate.google.co.uk]

let us know how testing goes I'm really interested in the marlin firmware as it's supposed to be the fastest. I'm not really interested in lcd, and sd card support at the current moment so if it could be squeezed in the 644p that would be great. (I know if I want to have those things supported I'll have to upgrade to a 1284 or so.
terramir

I'm using a 644 20PU at the moment. I disabled LCD and SD card support, and the sketch size comes in at 47098 bytes (of a 63488 byte maximum). I also disabled the heated bed, so the temp control for that might take up a bit of space.

Hi dorftarts!
Great to hear that my Marlin fork worked for you too!! Sorry that there is still no documentation for using Marlin on GEN7 but my testing has just finished jet and I had no time to create a proper documentation.
Some quick infos (which you've allready noticed):

- The pins.h is for Alphons3 version of GEN7 in which the x-dir and x-step pins are different from the original.
- I've added another pin connection header (PIN D31/AI 0) to my board to use it as "cs pin" for sdcard.
- with LCD support the hex file is way too big for the ATMega644(p) so I switched to a ATMega1284p. With only SD card support it should also fit to an ATMega644(p).
- "arduino ide" support files for the ATMega1284p has been added but there are still some changes missing which I haven't documented jet.
- LCD Display / SD Card power issue:
GEN7 starts in standby mode with PSU turned off. Because of this the LCD display has no power during startup and so it doesn't get initialized by Marlin. To solve this I've just bridged the ATX PS_ON line (the green one) to ground ... so power is allways on. Also the sd card will not work while GEN7 is in standby mode.
- TEMP Min-Max Issue:
Till GEN7 v1.3.1 temperature was only messured when the PSU was on. In standby mode only fantasy values were reported from the therminstors.
Marlin kills itself right after start when min or max temperature values are measured. So I've disabled this behavior if PS_ON pin > -1 (defined in pins.h).
Traumflug changed the thermistor connection to the 5V standby line in his newest version of GEN7... so disabling will not be needed with newer boards.(also useless with power allways on).
- Beeper Issue:
There was no pin left for connecting a piezo beeper -> I've disabled the beeper when the PIN is set to "-1"
- Disabled the carddetect routine if the CARDDETECT Pin is set to "-1"


I'll publish the hole documentation on reprap.org as soon I find some spare time. There will be my GEN7 board changes as well as schematics of my redesign of the "ultipanel". It would be great if you could send me your adapted pins.h to add GEN7 v1.2 support (you could also have write acces to the repo if you like to?!).

Quote

Traumflug changed the thermistor connection to the 5V standby line in his newest version of GEN7

The thermistor bias resistors should be connected to the AVCC pin of the micro and the thermistor grounds should have their own track to the GND pin for accurate results.

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

yep... as far as I can see that's what Traumflug has done for his future release.
I've I noticed swapping temp readings when heaters were switched on and off.
Cause I've etched my board with the old design I had to cut the obsolete copper trace with a knive and connect the resistors to AVCC trough an isolated wire.
Not the most beautful way but it works and is much faster than reetching and soldering the whole board.

Quote

as far as I can see that's what Traumflug has done for his future release.

Almost. There's this noice canceling coil between 5VSB and AVCC which goes to AVCC only, not the thermistors. I'll see wether I can fix this, at the first glance routing isn't straightforward.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Hi scuba, thanks for your version of Marlin, it inspired me to have a go at putting it on Gen7 - and frustrated me when I couldn't get it working! I've read what you changed, which isn't really applicable to the standard Gen7 1.2 board I have. As it seems to be just pin assignments that are needed to get v1.2 boards working, I don't see why it isn't already rolled into Erik's Marlin. Any reason it hasn't? I think it would be good for Gen7 to have another firmware option, and be supported by the main fork of Marlin.

I'll try the latest version of Marlin from Erik and see if I can get it to work, and then see if we can get Erik to roll standard Gen7 and Gen7 'Alphons3' version pin assignments into the main fork.

Pinout of Gen7 1.2 and Gen7 1.3.1 is the same, except for the fan pin, which is no longer featured on the 1.3.1.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

As I've written before Gen7v1.2 (and v.1.3.1) can't read correct temperature values when it's powerd on and in standby mode. Marlin runs a "kill" procedure if the messured temperature gets too low or high.The "kill" starts a loop till the chip gets resetted and will not accept any input in this state.
So it's not only changing the pins.h. You can get rid of it by applying my commit (or something similar) [github.com] to the new version of Marlin. If you don't plan to use a lcd display or sdcard adapter you can leave to other stuff as it is.

User Reptier (who has written repetier firmware) told me that Marlin uses hard coded timing tables for 16MHz. So you might run into issues at 20MHz (not correct calculated timing? faster moves?). There were no problems compiling and controlling Marlin at 20MHz but never tried to print anything at 20 MHz.(I've switched to 16). It would be great if you could tell us about your experiences.

I've finished my experiments just a few days ago and I didn't want to start a pull request until it really works. But If you had success on your v1.2 I think we should give it a try

Thanks for the extra detail, scuba, regarding the temperature control. I had the 'Kill' problem when I put Erik's Marlin_v1 on my board initially, but I'm not a good enough programmer to know why! Does your commit get replicated back to Erik's version? Sorry, I'm really not clear how github works.

I read your note about Marlin only coded for 16MHz chips. The result of putting it on a 20MHz chip is, as expected, everything runs 25% faster, so a move that should take 10 seconds actually takes 8 seconds. I haven't noticed any problems with this, mostly because I slice everything at reasonably low speeds anyway - I'm not maxing out speeds. Also, after reading some discussion from Repetier, I set the comms speed to 115200, as from what I could make out the faster speed produced a lot of serial errors at 20Mhz. I haven't had any problems with this speed. I suppose I could swap the crystal for a 16Mhz one if it becomes a problem.

Other problems noticed:
1. Temperature reporting seems to be unstable - it can suddenly jump up or down 10C. This may be due to crosstalk from the heater and/or motor wiring when they turn off and on - I was experiencing something similar with my Gen6.
2. In my gcode I had M84 (turn off motors) as the last step. Before this I had a few lines to move the head away from the part. This worked fine on Gen6 with the old version of Marlin (pre v1), but on Gen7 with Marlin it seems to activate M84 as soon as it is received, ahead of the other lines of code.

Here's the code for Gen7 v1.2 from my pin.h file. I guess this should work fine with v1.1, but v1 is a bit different. I added another comment line in configuration.h to indicate the motherboard number for the Gen7. I guess for v1.3.1 there needs to be a little loop to remove the pin assignment for the fan - thanks Traumflug.

/****************************************************************************************
* Gen7 v1.1 and v1.2 pin assignment
*
****************************************************************************************/

#if MOTHERBOARD == 78
#define KNOWN_BOARD

#if !defined(__AVR_ATmega644P__) && !defined(__AVR_ATmega644__) && !defined(__AVR_ATmega1284P__)
    #error Oops!  Make sure you have 'Gen7' selected from the 'Tools -> Boards' menu.

#endif

//x axis pins
    #define X_STEP_PIN      19
    #define X_DIR_PIN       18
    #define X_ENABLE_PIN    24
    #define X_MIN_PIN       7
    #define X_MAX_PIN       -1
    
    //y axis pins
    #define Y_STEP_PIN      23
    #define Y_DIR_PIN       22
    #define Y_ENABLE_PIN    24
    #define Y_MIN_PIN       5
    #define Y_MAX_PIN       -1
    
    //z axis pins
    #define Z_STEP_PIN      26
    #define Z_DIR_PIN       25
    #define Z_ENABLE_PIN    24
    #define Z_MIN_PIN       1
    #define Z_MAX_PIN       -1
    
    //extruder pins
    #define E0_STEP_PIN      28     
    #define E0_DIR_PIN       27     
    #define E0_ENABLE_PIN    24     

    #define TEMP_0_PIN      1 
    #define TEMP_1_PIN      -1  
    #define TEMP_2_PIN      -1
    #define TEMP_BED_PIN      2   
    
    #define HEATER_0_PIN    4    
    #define HEATER_1_PIN    -1    
    #define HEATER_2_PIN    -1
    #define HEATER_BED_PIN      3
    
    
    #define SDPOWER          -1
    #define SDSS          -1 // SCL pin of I2C header
    #define LED_PIN         -1    
       
    #define FAN_PIN         31    
    #define PS_ON_PIN       15    

    //our pin for debugging.
    #define DEBUG_PIN        0
    
    //our RS485 pins
    #define TX_ENABLE_PIN	12
    #define RX_ENABLE_PIN	13
    
#endif

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2012 02:13PM by droftarts.

... and, just like you, I need to use an M80 command to turn on the ATX PSU; it doesn't happen automatically. M81 doesn't seem to do anything, when it should turn the PSU off.

Checking with various online bit rate calculators, 250000 bps produces 0% errors at 16Mhz and 20Mhz, so would seem to be the best speed to use.

Quote
droftarts
1. Temperature reporting seems to be unstable - it can suddenly jump up or down 10C. This may be due to crosstalk from the heater and/or motor wiring when they turn off and on - I was experiencing something similar with my Gen6.

I have seen this, too, but mostly at the low end of the temperature range. I start out at "room temperature", but as soon as I apply power to the heater, the reported temperature drops about 5C or 10C. I haven't found a good explanation for it, but it could be caused by noise.

Quote
droftarts
2. In my gcode I had M84 (turn off motors) as the last step. Before this I had a few lines to move the head away from the part. This worked fine on Gen6 with the old version of Marlin (pre v1), but on Gen7 with Marlin it seems to activate M84 as soon as it is received, ahead of the other lines of code.

I think it's a safety feature. Sometimes you need to turn the motors off NOW NOW NOW and not wait for the head-destroying Z move to finish.

I think the command buffer is usually about 4 lines deep, if you're using "ok" acknowledgement. So if you add a few extra moves before the M84 it might help. So, for example, if you have this:

    G1 X0 Y0 F5000 ; Move away from print
    M84  ; turn off motors

You could change it to something like this:

    G1 X0 Y0 F5000 ; Move away from print
    G1 X0 ; No-op moves to fill the buffer
    G1 X0 ; No-op moves to fill the buffer
    G1 X0 ; No-op moves to fill the buffer
    G1 X0 ; No-op moves to fill the buffer
    G1 X0 ; No-op moves to fill the buffer
    G1 X0 ; No-op moves to fill the buffer
    M84  ; turn off motors

Thanks for the config file. I want to try this out on my Gen7, too.

Phil

Thanks for the pin configs!! I'll look for an intelligent way to switch through GEN7 Versions in pins.h and implement it in my repo.
No my commit is only present in my repository; But you just have to change some lines in temperature.cpp. In the commit view (follow my link) you can see red lines (with "-" in the beginning) which has to be replaced with the green lines (with "+"). They tell Marlin not to kill itself if the PS_ON Pin is configured and the temp is too low or high. Just as easy as that

To your problems:
1) I've noticed the same temperature swapping when it stopped or started heating! After connecting the thermistors resistors to stanby 5V and cutting of from Disk Power I got stable temp readings.(see image)
2) Hmm... interesting... maybe the "look ahead" feature prioritieses the M84 ... maybe as an emergency stop???
I'll have a look into the code.

I've merged droftarts' config into pins.h now, but I haven't tested it beyond 'make'.

You can pull my changes from github

You might also want some of other changes on that 'phord' branch.

Thanks again for the code. But there's a typo around your HEATER_BED_PIN

droftarts Wrote:
> #define HEATER_0_PIN 4
> #define HEATER_1_PIN -1
> #define HEATER_2_PIN -1
> #define HEATER_BED_PIN

I think you want a -1 there. In my case, I wanted the HEATER_BED_PIN active, so I set it to the normal value, which is 3.

     #define HEATER_BED_PIN  3

phord Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks again for the code. But there's a typo around your HEATER_BED_PIN

Oops, you're absolutely right. I had an extra comment in there that I deleted, and took the 3 with it. I'll update my post in case anyone cuts and pastes it without reading the whole thread. I also meant to say that I have not tested the heated bed heater or thermistor, as the mosfet that powers it has blown on my board. I have a separate way of controlling the bed.

Thanks also for the other info re M84, that makes sense. I figured it was something sensible like that! I just didn't know how to fill the queue up. I'll try it out.

I've had a look at your Marlin fork, looks good, and I like how you have managed to add support for v1.3 too. However, for everyone else, I really think it would be worth pushing your (and/or scuba's) changes back to Erik, and getting the Gen7 in the main Marlin branch. Then we can keep up to date with the latest changes in the main branch - or does github do this automatically?

Scuba, I like your temperature voltage hack! I see Traumflug plans on doing this in v1.4.

Hi, I have tried to upload the gen7 branch fork to my gen7, but I get an error message from arduino, I'm not At my machine now, but the message say that it miss wstring.h, but I have the gen7 folder added in the arduino hardware, do I have to add the sanguinololu ? and do I have to choose Sanguino to connect with arduino ? I have tried to add the wstring.h from the sanguino folder to the gen7 folder but, it's worth.
If somebody can help it will be good.

Hi pomalin. Are you using the Arduino 1.0 software? It has renamed a few files, and the firmware needs to be updated to use it, which has not necessarily been done. I have done all my compiling and uploading using Arduino 0022. I used scuba's version, and it has a folder specifically for Gen7 with all the correct files in the correct folders: [github.com]
You may be able to use phord's github [github.com] for the pins.h file, but I don't think he has updated his yet with the code for stopping the 'kill' behaviour when the Gen7 powers on, before the PSU is active.

I use arduino 0023 on ubuntu I will give that a try tomorrow, thank you.

Yep... in the original GEN7 support folder there are some files missing / different for what Marlin needs to compile. I've borrowed them from the Sanguino folder which comes with Marlin. I've only tested it with Arduino 0022

Hello now I can upload it and I seem to have a connection, but all it do is looping in that :

startL'imprimante est connectéeecho:Marlin: 1.0.0 RC1
echo:Configuration.h: 2012-02-08j | Author: username
echo:Free Memory:1678 PlannerBufferBytes:1168
echo:Using Default settings:

I use pronterface

That's pretty much the same message as I get, except I don't get the version number reported:

start
Printer is now online.
echo:Free Memory:1667 PlannerBufferBytes:1168
echo:Using Default settings:
echo: Steps per unit:

etc

You have the same amount of memory as me, so I guess that's not the problem.

I assume you are using Erik Zalm's version of Marlin. I'm still using scuba's version. Have you applied scuba's fix for the temperature sensing? You need this or the electronics will just switch off. I think you can test if it is causing the problem by unplugging the thermistor. Have you had the electronics working before with other firmware? I have found if the microswitches are incorrectly wired they can force a reset. Unplug them too to test.

If you don't have an lcd, Ultipanel or SD card, make sure support for these are commented out of the configuration.h.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2012 06:10AM by droftarts.

Hi, thank you for the answer, I use phord's and try also scuba's version, but with almost the same result. I have the electronics working with teacup well, but this is my second printer, and with the first I have marlin on a RAMPS, so I wanted to have marlin with gen7. I have disabled lcd, sd and ultipanel, but I will investigate more may be I have miss something. For the scuba's fix, I assume I have apply it, but, again I will watch this with a more clever eye.

I'm trying to bring up my printer too. Gen 7 v1.2, IDE 0.23, scuba82 Marlin, pronterface.

I'm also getting the rolling restarts, It's a little over 3 seconds between the restarts.
adding print statements into the code (SERIAL_ECHOPGM), I see the thing resetting after the timer0 is enabled in temperature.cpp in setup->tp_init.
I never see the "a6" printed out.

Any idea what setting I did not set correctly?
It has not turned on the ATX powersupply.

  #endif
  SERIAL_ECHOPGM("a5");
  delay(250);
  
  // Use timer0 for temperature measurement
  // Interleave temperature interrupt with millies interrupt
  OCR0B = 128;
  TIMSK0 |= (1<<OCIE0;  
  
  // Wait for temperature measurement to settle
  SERIAL_ECHOPGM("a6");
  delay(250);

start
echo:Marlin: 1.0.0 RC1
echo:Configuration.h: 2012-02-08j | Author: scuba82
echo:Free Memory:1604 PlannerBufferBytes:1168
echo:Using Default settings:
echoteps per unit:
echo:  M92 X80.00 Y80.00 Z2560.00 E836.00
echo:Maximum feedrates (mm/s):
echo:  M203 X500.00 Y500.00 Z5.00 E45.00
echo:Maximum Acceleration (mm/s2):
echo:  M201 X9000 Y9000 Z100 E10000
echo:Acceleration: S=acceleration, T=retract acceleration
echo:  M204 S3000.00 T3000.00
echo:Advanced variables: S=Min feedrate (mm/s), T=Min travel feedrate (mm/s), B=
minimum segment time (ms), X=maximum xY jerk (mm/s),  Z=maximum Z jerk (mm/s)
echo:  M205 S0.00 T0.00 B20000 X20.00 Z0.40
echoID settings:
echo:   M301 P22.20 I1.25 D99.00
Aa5start
echo:Marlin: 1.0.0 RC1
echo:Configuration.h: 2012-02-08j | Author: scuba82
echo:Free Memory:1604 PlannerBufferBytes:1168
echo:Using Default settings:
echoteps per unit:
echo:  M92 X80.00 Y80.00 Z2560.00 E836.00
echo:Maximum feedrates (mm/s):
echo:  M203 X500.00 Y500.00 Z5.00 E45.00
echo:Maximum Acceleration (mm/s2):
echo:  M201 X9000 Y9000 Z100 E10000
echo:Acceleration: S=acceleration, T=retract acceleration
echo:  M204 S3000.00 T3000.00
echo:Advanced variables: S=Min feedrate (mm/s), T=Min travel feedrate (mm/s), B=
minimum segment time (ms), X=maximum xY jerk (mm/s),  Z=maximum Z jerk (mm/s)
echo:  M205 S0.00 T0.00 B20000 X20.00 Z0.40
echoID settings:
echo:   M301 P22.20 I1.25 D99.00
Aa5

The one part I haven't tested is the heated bed, both the temperature sensing and the heater. Mine are unplugged. Check that you have the pins.h assignment correct as my post above, as originally I left out the heated bed pin assignment. Try it with thermistors unplugged.

Also, it looks like it's failing when setting PID settings for the heated bed, as I expect that's the next line. Perhaps try disabling PID.

> Check that you have the pins.h assignment correct as my post above

Yep, scuba ported your updates correctly.

> .... part I haven't tested is the heated bed,

I switched them to -1, I don't have the bed installed yet, trying get it it working before I add it.

> .... looks like it's failing when setting

Nope, that the last line of the print block in setup.
it's resetting after the timer0 is enabled in temperature.cpp in setup->tp_init.

> Try it with thermistors unplugged.

I just plugged my in to see if it was the problem... I current have only 4 of the stepper motors connected. Tried with the thermistors pulled in and without it.

Dwayne

I commented out the call to tp_init in setup, and the printer is no longer doing the rolling inits.

Something the the temperature code is unhappy causing my resets.

I had to do a "M80" to turn on the power supply.
I'm able to drive the Z stepper. I can hear the motor engage. I have the current dialed down to the min so it's not turning. Have to start adjusting it.

Able to start verifying and adjusting the stepper stuff.
Still need to find the problem in the temperature setup...

Dwayne

Same problem here. The line that sets the BED temperature sensor as an input is where mine reboots. The boot code reports it was a brown-out reset. This suggests a short somewhere, but Teacup works fine on my board. Maybe that we shouldn't be setting that sensor pin up as an input.

The specific trigger that causes the brown-out appears to be enabling a timer interrupt. I don't know enough about it yet, but it's this line, I think:
TIMSK0 |= (1<<OCIE0B ) ;


Investigating...

[Update: Identified the right line of trigger code]
[Update: Problem is in the ISR... Oh, dear god, look at the size of that ISR! ]
[Update: The board BORs when the ADC is enabled in the ISR. Dunno why. Going to bed now. Offending code follows.]

ADMUX = ((1 << REFS0) | (TEMP_0_PIN & 0x07));
ADCSRA |= 1<<ADSC; // Start conversion


Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2012 02:42AM by phord.

Hmmm... yes... now you're talking about it I remember I've run into the same issue in my beginnings....
You have to use different Chip "fuses" for Marlin....
The differences to the original GEN7 fuses are:
- activate: Preserve EEPROM memory through the Chip Erase cycle; [EESAVE=0]
- Brown-out detection level at VCC=2.7V;[Bodlevel=101]

So reset the fuses to: lfuse= 0xF7 ; hfuse = 0xD4 ; efuse = FD; (You'll need a programmer to do this)

Sorry for missing that... I've just forgotten about it.
( but you can also find the fuses the ATMega1284 discription in my boards.txt)