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People building or using RepRaps.
Teacup vs Sprinter - 14 years ago
When I get back off of this business trip I think I'm going to try switching firmware on my Gen6 Mendel. Can anyone comment on the relative pro's and con's of Teacup vs. Sprinter? I've heard a lot about both, but not sure which to switch too. Also, any experiences getting either up and running on Gen6 hardware? Thanks, Jamesby jim_blag - Reprappers
Re: Print stops randomly - 14 years ago
In the print tab in RepSnapper, next to the Interactive Control tab (in the middle of the screen) there is another tab for communications, if you click on that one you can see three different levels of comms between RepSnapper and the printer. One is just echos, one is errors and one is everything. It should give you more insight into what is going on. Failing that you could always download porby jim_blag - General
Re: Print stops randomly - 14 years ago
You might want to look at the error log in RepSnapper. M110 is the command it sends at the beginning of a print to set the line numbers up correctly. It appears that it thinks something went wrong and its trying to restart. I've seen this happen on my Gen6 Mendel once when the firmware crashed. JBby jim_blag - General
Re: Anything easier than Skienforge? - 14 years ago
If you are using SF38, then you need to play with the Feedrate and Flowrate settings on the Speed tab. If you use SF40+ and modify your E_STEPS_PER_MM setting in your firmware, you can just set both values to the same setting to control speed. The Feedrate controls the speed of the head over the bed, in mm per second. Flowrate affects the speed at which the extruder pushes out filament. Anotherby jim_blag - Skeinforge
Re: Anything easier than Skienforge? - 14 years ago
Which version of SF? How slow is it going? Have you changed the Feed Rate variable on the Speed tab? JBby jim_blag - Skeinforge
Re: Microswitch as end stop? - 14 years ago
Ok, the firmware is thinking the endstop has been hit. I vaguely recall Camiel did mention he changed the style of end-stops now, so there are two firmware versions a non-inverting and an inverting version. Switch the wires to pins 3 and 5, that should get it working. JBby jim_blag - General
Re: Microswitch as end stop? - 14 years ago
Now that I've got home and looked at my micro-switch set-up, I got the connections wrong! I shouldn't do things from memory, it's not what it used to be. I've edited my post above to reflect the correct information. JBby jim_blag - General
Re: ReplicatorG 0018 Compatible with Mendle 5D? - 14 years ago
Sounds like they have inverted the endstops. There is a #define in the configuration.h file. JBby jim_blag - General
Re: Skeinforge (or Python) install problem, Win XP - 14 years ago
Sorry typo, try this: import Tkinter The double backslashes are required to escape the backslash so that if you really want to print 'Hello\neil' it comes out correctly and doesn't insert a carriage return '\n', so you put 'Hello\\neil' to show you really want a backslash. JBby jim_blag - Skeinforge
Re: Skeinforge (or Python) install problem, Win XP - 14 years ago
Tkinter is a default part of python. You could check it by starting a command prompt, then typing: python when the python environment starts, type: import tkinter if nothing exciting happens, everything is fine. If it complains, something went wrong with your python install and you should try reinstalling. However, looking at the error it looks like skeinforge is trying to get a list of allby jim_blag - Skeinforge
Re: Microswitch as end stop? - 14 years ago
The correct configuration for the micro-switch is: Common - Detector Vout (pin 4) Normally Open - Detector GND(see comment below for pin #) Normally Closed - Detector Vcc (see comment below for pin #) This is where I think the Wiki is wrong, on my schematic of the Gen6 board, I see the following pin-out for the opto's (it could be Camiel changed the configuration between board revisions, but Iby jim_blag - General
Re: mendel power supply - 14 years ago
It will be fine from a power supply perspective. The only thing that you need to pay attention to is that the heater controller is assuming 6-ohms at 12v, so you'd need to recalculate your resistance requirements (using trusty old V = IR) to keep the current constant for 16v instead of 12v. Regards, Jamesby jim_blag - General
Re: Skinning - 14 years ago
Thanks for the comments. I've posted some new pictures on my blog. Testing is going well, I'm going to work on some trickier prints to see how those go. Regards, Jamesby jim_blag - Reprappers
Re: Trying to get rid of extruder codes M101,103 and 108 - 14 years ago
What mod's are you seeing from RepSnapper? I use it all the time with SF40 generated GCode with no issues. If you have the temperature detection enabled on the print tabe it will slip M105's in every 2-seconds, which you don't want (see here), but just hit the 'Enable' button to switch that off. JBby jim_blag - Skeinforge
Re: Microswitch as end stop? - 14 years ago
I wouldn't worry about high-power versions, you are replacing an opto switch, they only draw a few mA's. The high amps are for the steppers and heater. What you've selected is bound to be fine. All it needs to do is repeatably detect when the end of travel has been met. Even with my opto-end stops I can be a few steps off even if I'm not skipping steps. With my micro-switch bed mapping approachby jim_blag - General
Re: Microswitch as end stop? - 14 years ago
There is a section of the Gen6 WiKi that talks about using micro-switches. You don't need any resistors. I use a micro-switch for my bed-mapping application to check for flatness by switching out the Z-Opto for a microswitch and it works fine. The only thing I'd suggest is that you check the endstop pin-out listed on the Wiki with the schematic. I recollect that it didn't match my hardware. Reby jim_blag - General
Re: Opto flag design files? - 14 years ago
I think what you are looking for is here. JBby jim_blag - General Mendel Topics
Re: Trying to get rid of extruder codes M101,103 and 108 - 14 years ago
Correct, you need a tab. I put it between symbols for emphasis, but I guess the forum interpreted the symbols as something else and removed the text between them! JBby jim_blag - Skeinforge
Re: Botmill Axis 2.1 - Question about gear placement on XAxis motor - 14 years ago
I don't have a Botmill version, but I ended up using different drive pulleys for a different reason and had a similar problem. I used M4 washers under the bearings as spacers to raise the bearings to be in the right plane for the drive belt on the axis. Good luck. Jamesby jim_blag - General Mendel Topics
Re: Skeinforge settings - 14 years ago
Hi Grogyan From SF40 onwards it requires a change to your firmware. You need to recalculate the E-STEPS-PER-MM value to represent the steps required to push 1mm of filament into the extruder (as opposed to steps required to push 1mm out of the extruder). For details of how to do this see this post: You will also need to set flow rate and feed rate to the same value with SF40+. I have attacheby jim_blag - Skeinforge
Re: Trying to get rid of extruder codes M101,103 and 108 - 14 years ago
Try putting this in the replace file: M108;M108 This will comment out the offending line. Repsnapper won't send the comments to the printer so won't waste bandwidth. JBby jim_blag - Skeinforge
Skinning - 14 years ago
I thought some of you might be interested in something I've been tinkering with. I really like the look of objects printed with a very fine layer height, however they take an age to print. I decided it would be great if I could 'Skin' an object by printing the outer layers with a very fine layer height but leave the inner layers with a thicker layer height. I've been working on some simple scripby jim_blag - Reprappers
Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago
Not without a soldering iron and cutting some traces. The stepper drivers a configured in micro-stepping mode via PIO pins on the driver IC's. The Atmega is being clocked at 16MHz, I wonder if I could switch out the crystal and clock it faster (and change all the timer settings in the firmware). The datasheet implies it can run up to 20MHz. JBby jim_blag - General Mendel Topics
Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago
I'm beginning to wonder if the Gen6 has problems with retraction (& possibly Z-Axis moves) due to ISR duration. Thinking about it, if I vary the retraction speed all the way up to 120mm/s (extreme I know), the actual speed of retraction doesn't really change. I suspect that the timer is firing before the previous ISR has completed, or the ISR execution time is longer than the timer duration aby jim_blag - General Mendel Topics
Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago
I'm running the default build of firmware that comes with the Gen6. Not entirely sure which RepRap version it is based on. I've just had to add the M117 GCode to my version for my bed mapping program since it wasn't supported in the Gen6 version, so I suspect it is pretty old. A lot of the MCode listed on the RepRap page are not supported in this version. Jamesby jim_blag - General Mendel Topics
Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago
Hi Nophead. I haven't played with the Atmega tool chain that much, so I'm not sure if they have a useful profiler that would allow me to determine how long the ISR takes. I'd probably need to get their proper debugger for that too. I could always try twiddling PIO lines and use a scope to measure the duty cycle. Although I don't have a scope or logic analyser at home, I'd have to take it intoby jim_blag - General Mendel Topics
Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago
I ran a few experiments this weekend. The first was to remove retraction and reduce the Z-axis speed to verrrry slow. This was to test my theory that these two events were causing the comms errors due to lack of processor resources. With this configuration the comms errors went away (of course the blobs got much worse!). Then I started digging around in the firmware. From what I was able to deteby jim_blag - General Mendel Topics
Re: y axis homing direction issues and endstop question - 14 years ago
That's clearly not correct. When it trips the end-stop it should stop moving in that direction but should allow movement in the opposite direction. A couple of things to try: use a mutli-meter to check the output voltage from the microswitch when it is open and when it is pressed - make sure it switches from VCC to GND as expected. Not sure about your hardware if it should be at VCC when normalby jim_blag - General
Re: Have problems getting Skeinforge 40 settings right, asking for help. - 14 years ago
Try using this for backing up your Skeinforge settings. It makes the whole process much simpler: SkeinArchiver JBby jim_blag - General