Coast seems to help a lot

OK, yes I still have a laundry list of other issues to sort so this is not definitive. However, using coast seems to have helped a LOT with extruder issues AND print quality. I set the coast to 0.4mm, retraction distance to 2.6mm, extra restart distance to 0.25mm, and retraction speed to 2400. This seems to be a very good place to start. Results may vary...

If coast to end helps, then it is likely that turning on Bowden elasticity compensation would too or instead. See [reprap.org]. Note that if you enable this feature, you may need to reduce the amount of retraction you use in your slicing parameters.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

That's a fair point. However, my thinking was to reduce the pressure inside the hot end to make retraction easier so this seems as good a way to accomplish that as any. Also it resulted in NO stringing and no zits despite running hot enough for the filament to be quite droopy if unsupported (205C on Velleman cheap and nasty)

I still haven't had a chance to play with the coast on my system yet, although I can very much believe that it improved the print quality. It made the world of difference on my MendelMax after I converted it to having a Bowden tube.

Today I came across a fun Jack-o-Lantern on Thingiverse (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:167043) I tried printing it out using some orange eSun stuff and was happy enough with the results, but it still showed the usual stringing I find with eSun materials. I then remembered that I was a couple of firmware versions behind dc42's latest so updated from 1.09e to 1.09k. After, I figured I'd try printing the same print again, just because... the difference on surface finish was amazing. I'm not exactly sure what's been changed to make such a difference but I didn't have any stringing or blobs on the surface (there weren't that many previously, but now there are none), and the surface is perfectly smooth. So, if you haven't updated yet, I'd recommend giving it a go. Just remember to lower your feedrate in homedelta.g in the sys folder on your SD card.

Thanks. Feedrate? Do I need to update the SD card files too or just the firmware? I haven't kept up.

I'm still on 109c, yes it is on my long list of things to sort out...probably should do firmware first, then calibration etc. Flipped bed over, did two 4-point calibrations, and it was not happy. Filament broke in the extruder trying to print the first layer. Yet another teardown required. Pffft.

You can keep your existing SD card files when upgrading the firmware from 1.09c to 1.09k except that you should reduce the homing speed in the homedelta.g file.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

I have to use an outdated version of the Arduino IDE to update the firmware, really?! FFS

Quote
Theolodian
I have to use an outdated version of the Arduino IDE to update the firmware, really?! FFS

AFAIK you can use the current version, but then you have to (a) install the Arduino Due add-on as well as the Arduino IDE, and (b) search for where it has installed Bossac, which is hidden away.

What is really needed is for someone to update the GUI version of Bossac to work with the SAM3X8E. I took a look at building the Windows executable under VS2010. I was expecting it to be straightforward because it uses the wxWidgets cross-platform library, which is written in highly-portable C++. Unfortunately, there is no documentation on how to build Bossac, it uses nonstandard C++ extensions, and refers to libraries that I guess are specific to a particular build environment. So I haven't made much progress on this yet.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Yikes, I can see why that is a real hurdle. Grrr, how do I end up with so many IDEs when I can't actually program anything? So this is actually a step backwards from my Makerbot Cupcake, shock horror.

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Theolodian
Yikes, I can see why that is a real hurdle. Grrr, how do I end up with so many IDEs when I can't actually program anything? So this is actually a step backwards from my Makerbot Cupcake, shock horror.

Actually, all it would take is for RepRapPro to host the bossac executable and the device driver for download from their site, then you wouldn't need to install any Arduino IDE.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Yeah, seems silly to download and install a 100MB IDE when you then move an 800K EXE to another folder anyway so it doesn't seem to need any of the rest of the IDE to work. USB drivers?

As Arduino IDE is needed anyway for USB connections, for the drivers, at least on Windows, it's never seemed to us a very great impediment that you have to download the whole IDE. Also, while we could re-distribute bossac on it's own, we are not sure of the licensing, and we haven't contacted the author about doing this. We're currently looking at 'other ways' to update the firmware...

If you want to use Arduino 1.6.2 or later (ie the latest version), install it, then install support for the 'Arduino SAM-based boards' (like the Due and Duet) by going to Tools > Board > Boards Manager. This should install the drivers for the Duet board, and bossac. Find bossac in:

Windows - C:\Users[username]\AppData\Roaming\Arduino15\packages\arduino\tools\bossac\1.3a-arduino
'AppData' is a hidden folder, so to see this you will need to 'show hidden files, folders and drives' in the Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder options > Views > Advanced settings.

Ubuntu - [home]/.arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/bossac/1.3a-arduino
'.Arduino15' is an invisible folder in your user 'home' folder. See invisible folder by typing ctrl-h.

Mac - /Users/{username}/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/bossac/1.3a-arduino
The easiest way to get to it, as the Library folder in Users is usually hidden, is to click on the Finder 'Go > Go to folder...' menu option, then type '~/Library/', then follow the above path.

Ian
RepRapPro tech support

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2015 08:38AM by droftarts.

Thanks. I might as well update to latest Arduino IDE I guess.

I do think that a more polished firmware management process is key to having a more mainstream appeal.