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I'm just assembling my new MAX kit, but have questions about printing from USB vs SD card. This is not my first 3D printer, but is my first that can print from a SD card.

What are the advantages for printing from the SD card?

hagemeyp wrote:I'm just assembling my new MAX kit, but have questions about printing from USB vs SD card. This is not my first 3D printer, but is my first that can print from a SD card.

What are the advantages for printing from the SD card?

The biggest advantage is that you do not have to have a computer attached to the printer to perform prints.
You simply slice the STL, copy the resulting GCode to the SD card, pop the card in the printer, select the Gcode file
and the printer prints the file while you are free to use the computer in any manner you want without effecting the
printout.

Eaglezsoar - Is that to say if you run a print from the USB and start playing callofduty, that might produce some bad results? (Which would explain some things)

gajtguy wrote:Eaglezsoar - Is that to say if you run a print from the USB and start playing callofduty, that might produce some bad results? (Which would explain some things)

I had to chuckle on that one!
Yes, while printing via a host rather than the SD card you can disrupt the print if needed resources are in use by the host, you can do other things on the host computer but I like to dedicate
the host to the printer if possible even better is to use the SD card and let the Rambo be the printers host. I do have an old pc that I dedicate to printing tasks and it can handle more than one printer if you
have the need but playing games on a printer host can hose your print job.

Confirmed.

For me it was Borderlands 2, but same same. Printer was belting along and you get a familiarity with the tune it plays making a part. Cranked up a game (yes, eventually, eventually you do get bored sitting and watching these things print, believe it or not) and the tune changed from a merry jig to come kind of stilted dirge.

Printer speeds remain the same, it's just when the controller says "gimme some more instructions" the computer takes a while to send them out instead of doing it straightaway.

USB as a protocol has many fine features, low latency isn't one of them and on a busy computer that latency just goes to pot.

Another advantage of the SD card is being able to throw your printer in the shed and leave it run overnight, if (for example) you have a missus with misophonia who cannot fall asleep to the happy printing tune. I haven't done that yet, although my life may be hanging in the balance from a midnight throttling. Too many little glitches which can cause the printer to run away, too much fear of hotend runaway and fire.

I started printing using the usb. I wasn't using the computer for anything else at the time, but had the printer just stop in the middle of the print, nozzle resting right on the part, with the heat stuck on. I used the software to try to kill the print, but it just crashed. When I tried to reconnect I could not get the usb to read... Had to unplug and replug the usb back in before I could reconnect. At that point I decided it was best to go SD. It's a little pain to have to shuffle the card back and forth every time I try a slice, but if it avoids the possibility of a stopped print due to a usb dropout or computer hiccup, then I can deal with that...

-David

I usually print from a virtual PC inside my Mac (because Repetier for the Mac kind of sucks - doesn't get many updates). I can usually print just fine from the virtual PC, however if I'm doing something processor intensive (rendering video files, etc), then I find that the print slows down, or starts/stops and can leave small blobs of extrusion on some areas of my print. If I have that sort of work to do (and I know before I start) I usually switch to SD card printing so the printer can work uninterrupted.

To get SD printing to work flawlessly, I do need to disconnect my USB cable to the printer, otherwise the computer seems to want to poll the USB device occasionally and interrupt my print - not so good.

Wow.

Repetier for the Mac might be a little behind the Windows fork, but does it really suck harder than having to go back to winblows?

Captain Starfish wrote:Wow.

Repetier for the Mac might be a little behind the Windows fork, but does it really suck harder than having to go back to winblows?

Never, ever give up the fight and return to windows. You would be a traitor to the cause.

Captain Starfish wrote:[snip]but does it really suck harder than having to go back to winblows?

Yes

Having SD printing is definitely nice, one of my good friends also has a 3d printer, a Solidoodle 2, so no SD card printing, I was over his house and we were playing Saints Row 4, well the game locked up and when that happened his print that was going also stopped, I always print via SD now since my laptop is normally down in the living room where I use it and the printer is upstairs in the office. The only downside I've noticed to SD printing is you don't get the time remaining for the print, only a percentage remaining which seems to be pretty inaccurate, seems like it bases the percent mark a percent of layers printed and ignores how much is printed per layer.

Also, it's not always straightforward on which USB ports are sharing the same streams, so your 1000Hz polling mouse and keyboard can also be tieing up the USB resources even if they're plugged into different ports, especially hard to tell with laptops. Also avoiding shenanigans with how windows handles the ports can be avoided with SD cards *cough* powersaving*cough*.

Simplify3D has SD Card controls...

(Is this where I say "Just sayin'")

JohnStack wrote:Simplify3D has SD Card controls...

(Is this where I say "Just sayin'")

I am glad you told us since there is no demo for us to see.