Hey all, I'm trying to get a handle on how the acceleration and jerk settings affect prints, so I'm going to try a variety of values to see how much the quality changes. What is not immediately clear, however, is the difference between DEFAULT_ACCELERATION and DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION. If a default acceleration value is set, what would cause Marlin to use a higher value closer to the max? Lookinby TopherMan - Firmware - mainstream and related support
Okay, since there hasn't been an answer, I think I'll just try out a variety of settings and see what comes out. Here's my plan: print out a plate of precision blocks from here: using sfact's tower plugin. Then, in between each part I can add a few gcode lines setting the acceleration and jerk to different values. Any recommendations as to what sort of values to use for a Prusa i2 using Marlinby TopherMan - Printing
Hey all, Recently during a discussion helping someone with settings (here: ), Sublime brought up that Marlin's default acceleration is probably too high for Mendel-type printers (which happens to be what my printer uses, to relative success). This got me wondering, is there some sort of calibration process recommended for fine-tuning acceleration and jerk? I could do a brute-force test, printinby TopherMan - Printing
Shawn, For some reason I can't seem to edit my posts, so I can't change it at the moment. However, I am planning to change it to WORKAROUND, not remove it completely. The issue does not lie within Skeinforge, the issue is Printrun. See . The solution is to get the newest version of Printrun and edit gcoder.py, so in my mind it's solved, though it does require some hacking. Hopefully the Printrunby TopherMan - Skeinforge
Yeah, in reality, I know that the arduino and upcoming ARM solutions are more than powerful enough, I just like the idea of tinkering with more powerful tools. As far as the real-time kernels go, there has actually been some advancement there. Xenomai is a framework that runs alongside the kernel and gives it real-time functionality. With it I've got LinuxCNC running quite smoothly on a computerby TopherMan - General
I see. I was thinking of something that sat on top of the Linux kernel, like LinuxCNC, which I thought would be slightly more portable than programming the processor directly, and would give the advantage of being self-contained. However, that's a lot of overhead, and may still be more complex compared to changing from AVR to ARM. Also, rooting around the LinuxCNC dev mailing list, it seems thatby TopherMan - General
No problem. Don't worry about venting a bit of frustration, that's a critical part of any DIY project. I think most members agree that the documentation is not quite perfect, and probably could use a good cleaning-up.by TopherMan - General Mendel Topics
Well, regardless of the interest level, the Replicape won TI's contest, and will be manufactured. Seems like there isn't much interest in the community, but it's a nice option for someone who already has a Beaglebone or wants to play around with embedded Linux. I'm still curious about the issues with open vs closed source chips and how they impact projects like this, though.by TopherMan - General
The M8 grub screw is for the extruder's idler. The bearing is placed on the grub screw and then is snapped into the idler. Personally, I don't see why they do it this way, you can just use a small piece of scrap M8 rod instead of searching for a comparatively expensive and exotic screw. As far as the extruder, if you're in the States you can find really long M3s on McMaster-Carr, but personally,by TopherMan - General Mendel Topics
Those accelerations should be fine, I use similar ones. If you want to run it without a thermistor, set TEMP_SENSOR_0 in Configuration.h to 0 and it will let you move everything around without giving you temp errors. Additionally, if you want to pretend to print something (move everything like its printing but ignore the temp) M302 tells the printer to ignore temperature errors.by TopherMan - Printing
Yeah, those feedrates are really high. I'd switch back to the Marlin default, at least (500, 500, 5, 45). The only change I've made is lowering my Z to 2.5, because I have a Prusa i2 with anti-backlash springs, so my pololu burns out if I run it any faster. Additionally, what slicer and host are you using? In reality, these X and Y speeds are still faster than the supposed maximum step frequencyby TopherMan - Printing
Have you done any calibration of steps/mm? If this number is set too high for your system it will cause your system to move too rapidly. Check out here: to get an idea of what numbers to use for this. Additionally, are you looking at HOMING_FEEDRATE or DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE? The units here don't match up; homing is in mm/min, but max feedrate is in mm/sec (though even if that is your mistake, 50by TopherMan - Printing
Okay, interesting. I didn't realize the RPi or the Beaglebone relied on proprietary chips. I've just read about their open-source design, so I hadn't considered the implications of the individual components. So with respect to the current AVR chips that are popular for reprap electronics (not to mention Arduino), aren't they proprietary chips owned by Atmel? A few minutes' googling seems to hintby TopherMan - General
Hey all, I stumbled across this today, and thought I'd share. TI is currently doing a contest for "capes" (basically the same as Arduino's shields) for the Beaglebone. There's a contestant who has been designing a cape for 3D printers--five steppers, 3 high-power mosfets, 3 fan/led mosfets, three endstops, the whole shebang. His contest entry is here: and the board layout and a basic firmware iby TopherMan - General
I've talked to a few other people using Laywood, and they have pretty much all said that 0.35 mm is just a little too small, though they could stave off clogs for a while if they turned the temp up to 220 or so. I think they've all switched over to 0.5 nozzles when they're printing with it.by TopherMan - General
No.... no end.gcode file at all. Though if I added it and put M140 S0 in it that would be the last command executed, right? And (dumb question) where does the end file go? Just in Default folder in sfact_profiles? Thanks!by TopherMan - Skeinforge
Well, if your processor seems okay and you don't see any troubles with the wiring or traces, my suspicion is that your mosfet is busted, as that's what is supposed to turn on and off the power to your heated bed. I'm not terribly familiar with Sanguinololu specs, so I don't know what mosfet to replace it with, but some googling/forum searching should yield info on that.by TopherMan - Sanguino(lolu)
Hello everyone, So I'm using the bed temperature change functionality in Chamber, and it's working well except for one thing. I have Turn print Bed Heater Off at Shut Down, but at the end of the prints I noticed it wasn't cooling down. When I looked at the end of my files, I noticed this: M140 S0 M140 S60.0 I'm pretty sure this means its turning the bed off, but then immediately turning it bacby TopherMan - Skeinforge
Oh, yeah, I hadn't thought of how connection issues would effect a print. I can vouch for Repetier Server, it seems to be a good program (especially once the every-other-print issue is solved), I just liked the graphical progress display in Pronterface (which the Pi can't really cope with), and custom buttons so I'm not looking up gcode for "turn off all motors" all the time.by TopherMan - General
Not sure if this is quite what you're looking for, but if you have access to a Raspberry Pi and a wireless dongle, see here: Basically, it allows you to connect to the Pi's USB devices over a local network. I'm working on setting it up now on my system, and it seems to be working, though as they mention it crashes the first time you use it, and it looks like getting it running on a non-Linux clby TopherMan - General
Hey all, I was curious if anyone's had any success with syvwlch's printable clock script here: I've seen some implementation of it on Thingiverse, bit it's not really clear which clocks actually work, and how effective the script is. I'm thinking about trying out one or two of the simpler ones (such as Test Jig #3 ), but I was wondering if anyone else has had success with these clocks, or if tby TopherMan - General
I saw a couple include statements for avr/interrupt.h, so I had assumed that the libraries were one of the issues for porting. Since I'm very inexperienced with microcontroller programming, what sort of things do you have to check to port over Teacup to 32 bit?by TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
I'm interested in this myself, as I am awaiting a Due too. As far as board layout goes, the changes are minimal, right? Just need to move all the 5V connections to either 3.3V or Vref, and find a more appropriate MOSFET. Marlin, Teacup and Repetier all use AVR libraries and won't compile for the Due in Arduino 1.5.1, so I'm assuming the bigger hurdle is getting firmware onto the Due. I know therby TopherMan - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
Hey all, I've been using the method outlined in britishideas.com to use my Pi as a host, but today I started messing around with another solution. Repetier has published Repetier-Server, and it seems pretty handy. The source is at , and apparently if you have a new and sparkly 512 MB Pi you can compile from source. However, if you have an older 256 MB Pi like I do, he has helpfully put up an arcby TopherMan - Developers
Thanks bobc. Sublime, according to Ubuntu should automatically add the first admin account created to dialout (at least, since 10.04), but if (like me) you've messed around with your accounts at all dialout privileges may have been changed. Also, I'm using 12.04 and I can't find a GUI group tool. I can change if an account is an admin or not, but I can't find anything with more control. What prby TopherMan - Experimental
The command you want is usermod. As a sudoer, execute: sudo usermod -a -G dialout yourusername Here's a quick reference on adding users and groups: Once you do that, Pronterface should connect (though most Ubuntu installations don't like nonstandard baud rates, so make sure you set 115200 baud in the firmware and in pronterface). EDIT: turns out if you put less-than and greater-than signs arby TopherMan - Experimental
Not sure... I'm on Linux, so all I have to do is clone the repo and run it. Maybe you could try the setup.py attached to the pull request you linked? Sorry I'm not more help, I've never bothered trying to set up any printer software on my Windows machine, so I don't actually know how to get python scripts running on Windows.by TopherMan - Skeinforge
Hmm, well, it's right there in the main Printrun folder, right next to pronterface.py. Are you using the newest version of Printrun? I looked around on Github and it looks like gcoder.py is a newer addition, and the calculations originally happened in pronsole.py. You could update to the most recent Printrun and edit gcoder, or you could see if you can edit pronsole to work. Here's the diff wherby TopherMan - Skeinforge
Actually, the gcoder.py is within Pronterface. For me, it was at line 204. Thanks, jbernardis!by TopherMan - Skeinforge
Hi all, I've been attempting to learn how to use Skeinforge, and mostly failing. I've produced a few successful prints using Slic3r to generate my gcode, but I thought it would be good to get Skeinforge working as well. I think I may have a little bit figured out what the various settings are, but the issue is that whenever I slice an object, it invariably tells me that it uses 0mm of filament.by TopherMan - Skeinforge