Please Help - Senior Moment Strikes

[ex-egll]

Hi, I have just come back to 3D printing after about a year of playing with other toys, and have forgotten everything I ever new!!

I have the i3-12" printer with a Rumba board interfaced to raspberry Pi running Octoprint. I had to do some work on the hot end, which in turn meant re-calibrating the ABL. So far so good, but now I can't figure out how to get the new offsets into the Rumba config file. Somewhere in the recesses of my grey matter I recall using the Arduino IDE. As I am not sure of the contents of the config file is there anyway I can download it, or edit it directly or do I have to upload a new config file and overwrite the current one? My fear in just uploading a new one is that I am not sure I have a good copy of what is already on the Rumba.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.


(This time I'll write down the procedure!!)

[Roxy]

Are you just running the stock MakerFarm firmware? If so... You probably would just download it... And install Arduino from Arduino.cc. You would then double click on Marlin.ino . You would set your board type and what serial port the board is on (with the USB cable connecting the board to the computer).

Then click Ctrl-U to compile and upload the firmware.

PS. I don't have a MakerFarm printer. But those steps are going to be very similar for any RepRap printer that uses Marlin firmware.

[ex-egll]

Thanks Roxy, I suspect I am running stock and any changes I made were in the config file. I was hoping there was a way to download (or at least view) the files on the Rumba board. Failing that I'll hold my breath and download the stock and modify the config.

[Roxy]

Thanks Roxy, I suspect I am running stock and any changes I made were in the config file. I was hoping there was a way to download (or at least view) the files on the Rumba board. Failing that I'll hold my breath and download the stock and modify the config.

Depending upon how old your firmware is in the board.... Marlin has been getting better and better about letting you see the configuration stored in the board. If you do a M503, it will tell you the current settings. But like I say... The new firmware is better at doing that than the older software.

[ex-egll]

Thanks again Roxy. I'll get the latest and download it then.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Having been down this road a *lot* of times:

1) Get a notebook. Label it "i3 Printer"
2) Each time you change something, write down the change in the notebook
3) Each time you put in firmware, write down the version and settings in the notebook.
4) Each time you do a config file, save it in a folder on the computer with the date on it.
5) When you do a setup, note the values you came up with
6) When you cable up a board, note what goes where in the notebook
7) Date the pages at the top so you can figure out what was done when
8) Either keep notebooks by machines or by dates. Machines makes it easier to track down. One book at a time (dates) makes them a bit easier to index. If you do the date approach, mark the top of the page with what you are working on....

Yes it's a bit tedious. Each step takes a few seconds to complete. Once you get into the habit, it really does not add much time to the whole process. It's still not *easy* to figure things out. When I go into a 20 year old notebook, there is a bit of head scratching. More often than not, the info in there is useful in moving forward with a fix.

Bob

[ex-egll]

Thanks Bob, your suggestion has actually beem my "new" methodology over recent months. Unfortunately my previous tinkerings took place before I saw the light!

I'm going to bite the bullet and go with a new download and compile. Hopefully I will re-learn some of what I have forgotten by tweaking the files to get it all working again!

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Ok, so grab the notebook and write down everything you have. Update the firmware with the MakerFarm image first and note how it works (yes it will take 20 minutes). That way you know it's all hooked up ok. Then grab RC7 (or whatever) and start doing all the changes in the config files. Marlin is set up to handle a *lot* of printers and the git hub version is not pre-configured to work for the MakerFarm. Note and check the mods, you will have a bit of head scratching. Being sure the printer works first will save a lot of time as you check the settings changes.

Bob

[Roxy]

I would use a visual diff program to cross the MakerFarm's Configuration.h values over to the RC-7's Configuration.h file. You need to go through difference by difference and make intelligent choices. But if you can get it close... The printer will start doing things and you can do a couple more edits to get it behaving right.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

It's more the issue of, transfer settings + enable new stuff that generally ties you up in knots when going from 1.0.0.0.0 (or whatever MakerFarm is on) to something several years further down the line. The info is all there in the file and you can work it out. Getting all of it right the first time .... don't count on it

Little things like .... mesh bed level + BLTouch + RC Bugfix != success ; (just proved that one).

Bob