FlashPrint grossly underestimating time?

[DaveyG]

Hi all, I recently purchased a FF Creator Pro, and it seems to be working quite well, mostly PLA (at 185/50) but I'm experimenting with PETG (245/50) a bit too. I'm just curious if anyone else has noticed actual print times being double what FlashPrint software estimates? I've had several parts printed at my local library prior to purchasing my own unit (Library uses Makerbots, and Cura to formulate the Gcode) and their actual print times are pretty darn close to the software estimate. Am I missing something like is there a setting or parameter I need to change to get FlashPrint to estimate more correctly, or some way to get the machine to go faster, or do I just need to make a mental note to double any estimate that FP gives me? I've tried using the Creator Pro's touchpad to change speed while printing and even though it says 1.0x or 1.5x if I even enter the change speed screen, it actually goes down to like 1% speed and is unrecoverable, ends up scrapping the part each time.

[curious aardvark]

sounds like you either need to update your firmware or try a factory reset.

I've found that all slicers don't estimate print times that well. But usually it's never much more than 20 minutes or so out for a 3 hour print. Not double.
Also if accessing the control during a print buggers things up - then it sounds more like an issue with the firmware rather than flashprint.

[DaveyG]

Yeah I definitely think the speed adjustment at the printer is a firmware issue, but strangely enough it is running the latest driver update. I will look into the factory reset idea. Yeah the slicer timeline will say like 6 hours for a a fairly good sized part, but at the machine it takes 10-11 hours to complete. A small part will say 30 minutes on the slicer but will take 50-55 minutes to complete.

[curious aardvark]

that is a bit weird.
You've definitely got the right printer selected ?

Also driver updates and firmware updates are quite different.

[DaveyG]

Yes, I'm using flashprint and have it set to FF Creator Pro, which is my model. Where do I find the firmware updates? FF website just has 'download the latest software for your device' link.

[DaveyG]

After doing some research I have downloaded replicatorg and sailfish and will try switching the firmware to sailfish and see if that helps at all. It works quite well doing PLA parts aside from the time estimate being way off, and after playing with it some I am getting functional, albeit not as attractive, PETG parts so what will it hurt to try sailfish instead of whatever came from flashforge...

[DaveyG]

Well that brings up a new problem, ReplicatorG isn't connecting. I manually set it to Com4, which is where my control panel says the printer is located, but in ReplicatorG it still says 'Not Connected'

[DaveyG]

Well I got ReplicatorG to connect and upload the sailfish firmware to my printer, but now trying to use ReplicatorG to slice the model and I keep getting an error message, that says 'could not run skeinforge' and everywhere I have looked for a new download of skeinforge has an outdated link that doesn't work. Does anybody have a functional link to a skeinforge download?

[curious aardvark]

sounds like you have a really old version of rep-g.
All the recent ones use slic3r as the slicer.

Should be an option to select slicing engines - set it to slic3r.

[DaveyG]

My RepG only has three types of skeinforge as the options, but I downloaded direct from slic3r the latest version and it looks like I can just use it directly to write gcode, and with TONS of options. I've sliced a tiny test part with FlashPrint at each resolution setting, as well as the same test part with slic3r at a few different layer settings, going to try each one and see how the test part comes out, and will label each with whatever version of the gcode applied. It is just a 25mm square block with a height of 14mm and radii corners, but oddly enough FlashPrint estimated times were highest for the 'standard' setting, and actually faster for the hyper and high setting (high estimated the fastest print time)