Upgrading to Marlin Ver 1.0.5-R2 (Auto-leveling)

[RobH2]

46 ---METERS--- of filament needed for this print????
And your printer can do that in 41 minutes????

I would like to be jealous of the speed of your printer... But clearly something is wrong with your setup for the Slicer!!!!

If it weren't sad that would be funny. KissSlicer says 0.9 meters. That's about right. Maybe that's a clue to what's going on. If the extruder is trying to extrude 46 meters and print that fast maybe the extruder gear is moving but so slowly that I'm not detecting it visually? Sound like a Star Trek episode.

[Roxy]

If it weren't sad that would be funny. KissSlicer says 0.9 meters. That's about right. Maybe that's a clue to what's going on. If the extruder is trying to extrude 46 meters and print that fast maybe the extruder gear is moving but so slowly that I'm not detecting it visually? Sound like a Star Trek episode.

Actually... If you try to make the stepper motors move faster than they can... They just sit there. And that is very fast from the time and length it claims.

And because you can save the Cura GCode and use that in Pronterface... It is the Pronterface interface to Slicer that seems to be the issue.

I always run Slicer separate from PronterFace. But I'm pretty sure Slicer is using bad numbers. I don't think this has anything to do with your Configuration.h file.

[RobH2]

I compared the configuration.h files and saw nothing odd. There was one line that I changed though to test it.

#define DISABLE_INACTIVE_EXTRUDER false //disable only inactive extruders and keep active extruder enabled

The default was 'true'

I only have one extruder but maybe Pronterface is thinking my only extruder is inactive. If I ever have a dual extruder setup I'll revisit this line. Also, if this does not correct Pronterface, I'll revert it.

[Roxy]

My suggestion would be to bring up Slicer by itself. Go to Help/Configuration-Wizard and start fresh. Just enter the few things you need like temperatures, bed size, and filament size. Slice the .STL, save the GCode and see if PronterFace can do that. But some how, Slicer is trying to extrude way too much stuff!

I don't know how parameters get passed from PronterFace to Slicer. That is kind of why I'm suggesting just use Slicer by itself. But I think when PronterFace fires up Slicer, Slicer uses some saved settings. So if so, it is those settings that are wrong. (And part of why I'm thinking it might make sense to go through the Configuration Wizard to get good settings)

[RobH2]

Actually... If you try to make the stepper motors move faster than they can... They just sit there. And that is very fast from the time and length it claims.

And because you can save the Cura GCode and use that in Pronterface... It is the Pronterface interface to Slicer that seems to be the issue.

I always run Slicer separate from PronterFace. But I'm pretty sure Slicer is using bad numbers. I don't think this has anything to do with your Configuration.h file.

I'm not sure how to do that. I need to get better with those sort of things. I always open Slicer from within Pronterface to make adjustments. It opens in a seemingly separate interface. I'm never sure how much it talks back to Pronterface so I'm always double saving setting changes. I've never been sure that making the change in the Slic3r window updates anything automatically in Pronterface unless I save and close the Slic3r interface.

I also have Pronterface with Skeinforge embedded. I'll try that to see if it malfunctions. The more I use Skeinforge the more I get used to it and the less intimidated I am by it. But, for quick things, I always defaulted to Cura in the past. In the last few months though, I began to use the Pronterface/Slic3r interface more and more and it was becoming my "go-to."

I'll do more experiments. Once I solve it I may know how to fix Repeitier-H. It's always acted like Pronterface in that the head would move but it would never extrude. I like the look of Repetier-H but have never gotten it to print.

To be honest, the most beautiful prints I've ever gotten came from KissSlicer. I just like printing via a USB connection instead of carrying the SD card over. I know that if my computer hiccups that I'll lose the print, but I just like printing from the computer. If KissSlicer ever gets the ability to connect to the printer, all the other will be moot for me.

[Roxy]

If you bring up Windows Explorer... Drill down from 'My Computer' to the C: drive. Then Program_Files (x86) and then into Slicer. You should see a Slicer program there. You can double click on that to bring it up by itself.

Oh! Wait.... So if you bring up Pronterface, you can do Setting/Slicer_Settings. That will bring up Slicer by itself so you can mess with it. At that point you can do Help/Configuration_Wizard

[RobH2]

If you bring up Windows Explorer... Drill down from 'My Computer' to the C: drive. Then Program_Files (x86) and then into Slicer. You should see a Slicer program there. You can double click on that to bring it up by itself.

Oh! Wait.... So if you bring up Pronterface, you can do Setting/Slicer_Settings. That will bring up Slicer by itself so you can mess with it. At that point you can do Help/Configuration_Wizard

Ok, that's what I do. So, I'm doing it correctly.

I did just open Pronterface/Slicer and slice again. I got 46 meters of material reported in GCode. I opened up Pronterface/Skeinforge and it reported 4620mm. Big difference. I'm going to uninstall Pronterface/Slicer and reinstall it.

[Roxy]

I did just open Pronterface/Slicer and slice again. I got 46 meters of material reported in GCode. I opened up Pronterface/Skeinforge and it reported 4620mm. Big difference. I'm going to uninstall Pronterface/Slicer and reinstall it.

Even 4.6 meters sounds like a huge amount for something that small???

[RobH2]

Just to report in since we got off track and this is supposed to be about the Auto-Leveling mod, I'm printing a part that takes the full print envelope (in x and y) and the first layer that went down is spectacular. I seem to always get a squiggly first layer and kind of deformed areas. It never affected the part but it was unsightly. I did all kinds of experiments with flow rate and filament diameter tweaks and a host of other things and could never quite get it to look nice. Even as carefully as I manually leveled my bed with the screws on the corners of the bed, I guess I just could never get it perfect. Now it's perfect and it shows.

I'll stop gushing about Auto-Leveling soon but for now I can't help myself.

[Roxy]

Yeah... It is easy to forget... But that is what I felt too... I was impressed with how nicely the first layer goes down!

But I'm not so sure all this chit chat back and forth was 'off topic'. That is part of the Upgrade process. Not everything goes smoothly!