Updated to Firmware 0.91, can't contine/pause prints

[seedjar]

So for a long time I've been having a problem where my Orion hangs and needs hard reset after about the 800,000th line in a file. I read that this might be a firmware bug and finally yesterday bit the bullet and installed the latest Repetier-091-ORION release. Now everything seems to be in good working order, except I can't start prints. There's no menu item for it. In the past when my prints had always started paused I assumed it was the result of something in the start gcode of my slicer settings, but I can't seem to find anything about pausing in there. Here's the beginning of a sample file just to be sure:

Code: Select all

;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 14.09
; Default start code
G28 ; Home extruder
G1 Z15 F100
M107 ; Turn off fan
G90 ; Absolute positioning
M82 ; Extruder in absolute mode
M190 S100
; Activate all used extruder
M104 T0 S230
G92 E0 ; Reset extruder position
; Wait for all used extruders to reach temperature
M109 T0 S230
;Layer count: 975
;LAYER:0
M107
G0 F6720 X-0.604 Y-40.220 Z0.300

I have tried numerous files, both newly sliced and ones I knew to work with the old firmware, and as far as I can tell they aren't being interpreted at all. When I use the new select file command in the firmware menu, it chirps back at me like something is going to happen, but the towers don't move and the extruder setpoints don't change. I can preheat through the menu and all the other commands I've tried seem to be the same. But the SD card menu no longer has options to pause or continue prints, so I can't get things to work the way they used to.

I wasn't expecting the firmware update to be entirely smooth but I didn't imagine having a problem like this either. I can't find any documentation of the menu system - Repetier's website seems to suggest that everything should be self-evident by the time you get to interacting with the firmware UI. I can't seem to find anyone having a problem similar to this either, which makes me think I must just be overlooking something. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
~Joe

[geneb]

Joe, download the 3rd Edition of the Orion manual from the website. It covers the version of Repetier Firmware that you've installed.

g.

[seedjar]

Thanks Gene. I've looked over the manual (nice work on the extruder settings documentation BTW) but I don't think it covers the issues I'm having/features I'm trying to use. I cannot run towers.gco or any other file. There's no discussion of the SD card menu, where I would find the pause and continue print menu items. When I use select file as shown in the manual, the fourth line of the display flashes "Percent Printed: 0" for just a moment and then goes blank, and as far as I can tell no commands are interpreted. I can position manually - the only problem is with reading files.

I have inspected the header files and I see there are still pause and continue commands in the SD card menu, but they are conditional on the printer being in printing or paused modes. As a result I'm assuming that whatever happens when "Percent Printed: 0" flashes off the screen, it's neither paused nor printing after I use select file from the main menu.

Could this be a result of my installing the firmware incorrectly? The only way I deviated from the youtube instructions was in setting my baud rate. Is there any output on the serial console that could help me diagnose what's going on?

~Joe

[geneb]

Have you tried running the printer with MatterControl? Why did you change the baud rate?

g.

[bvandiepenbos]

The problem could be your sd card. I have had repetier not display any files sometimes.
Try a different sd card.
Or reformat your card and put gcode back on it.

[seedjar]

I haven't switched to MatterControl yet, still on Repetier-Host. I'm not sure why that would make a difference - I'm not printing tethered. But I will try that next. I am getting ready to scrap the Linux system I use to prepare files, so I'll make sure to install MatterControl as I rebuild.

I changed the baud rate because Ubuntu doesn't support 250kbps (I'm using 112.5k), and I never changed it back when I switched to Debian. I don't use the serial link so it never came up. I changed it in configuration.h because I wasn't sure if the board would continue talking to the programmer during the flashing process if there was a discrepancy between the old baud rate setting and the new ones. (I'm comfortable with Arduino but still have a tenuous grasp on what goes on behind the scenes.)

As for the SD card, I'll try another, but I can see the files just fine so I don't think it's the same problem that you describe. I can find them, I can select them in the menu - but it never starts executing the gcode. "Printing Percent: 0" flashes briefly on the screen before the machine returns to idle/preheat mode (whatever it was doing before I click "select file.")

When you guys print from SD cards, and your machine is preheated and ready to go, does the file begin to run immediately after you pick "select file" from the menu? Or do you have to go back into the SD card menu and select "continue print"? With the old firmware, I always had to use "continue print" before anything would begin. But now "continue print" never shows up in the menu.

~Joe

[BenTheRighteous]

Open up a text editor and put this in it:

Code: Select all

G28

Save it as homeTowers.gcode (or something) and save it to your sd card.

Try to run that on your machine. If the towers move, you have a slicer problem. If they don't, you have a firmware/hardware/wiring problem. That will at least tell you where to look.

Edit: I see the sample file in your original post already starts with G28 and you said that the towers don't move. I suspect you'll see the same result here, but I recommend trying it anyway just to be sure.

[seedjar]

All of the files I've tried start with a G28 (with some comments before) and it never gets to homing, but I'll make a new one and try it as described to be sure. Thanks.

~Joe

[BenTheRighteous]

Yeah, that thought occurred to me 10 seconds after I posted (hence the edit) but I had a similar experience as you when I was trying to get dual extrusion working. In my case though, I was trying to write the "change extruder" gcode by hand and I made a typo. Long story short, my typo wound up being the 3rd or 4th command in the gcode file but it was early enough to abort the print immediately, before the towers even moved from the G28.

So, I still think you should try the G28 all by itself, just to eliminate possibilities.

[bvandiepenbos]

I have had issues with files put on sd from a mac
Your Linux os may be your problem.
Try putting gcode on sd from another (preferably windoze) machine.

[seedjar]

Oh? That's pretty inconvenient but I'll take it under consideration. Do you know why that is? Does the new firmware have problems parsing newlines/carriage returns?

Could you give more of a description of the problem you had? Did it result in the printer not entering the printing/paused modes?

~Joe

[bvandiepenbos]

Oh? That's pretty inconvenient but I'll take it under consideration. Do you know why that is? Does the new firmware have problems parsing newlines/carriage returns?

Could you give more of a description of the problem you had? Did it result in the printer not entering the printing/paused modes?

~Joe

I do not know why. I am not sure if it is firmware specific or even os specific. sorry.
when I selected file nothing would happen.

[BenTheRighteous]

It makes some sense... if the very first line is a comment (as in the example in the first post) and the newlines aren't being read correctly, then perhaps the firmware "thinks" the whole file is just one extremely long comment.

[seedjar]

Exactly. I poked at it for a while this afternoon and it seems the empty commented lines may have been the problem. Haven't had a chance to get a slicer set up on my Windows system, but I tried converting the line breaks to Windows-style carriage returns with no effect. However, when I removed the lines with just comments and no gcode, those files worked fine. My Z height is off so I didn't let anything run in full, but it's a big step forward from where I was last night.

Thanks everyone. If I figure any more out I'll post here. Going to look into getting MatterControl running on my Mac but I also want to get Repetier-Host working again.

~Joe

[geneb]

FYI, the firmware upload baud rate is completely independent from the speed at which the running firmware communicates with the host. If memory serves, the firmware uploads at 9600 baud. That's why it takes so long to throw 128k of data at the controller.

g.