USB printing gone (!!!)
Hi there.
In the new Slicer3r PE version theres no way to print via USB!!! This is an absolute nightmare as my PC as using SD cards is ridiculous when my PC is right next to the printer & operates 24/7.
Is there any way to get this feature back? Its a massive deal-breaker for me. Do people literally just use SD cards all the time? I have no raspi controlling my i3 MK3 via GPIO, and I kinda don't see why I should need that when an i7 x86 via USB works perfectly well.
I know people talk about the risk of 'something going wrong' but seriously I printed something while I updated 100+ packages as well as my kernel on linux for a laugh just yesterday with older Slic3r and it was totally fine.
Why on earth did they remove this feature?? It blows my mind. Its like going back to the 18th century. I am losing my mind, this ruins the entire workflow.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
I, too have my computer right next to my printer and my computer runs 24/7. However, I came to Prusa from another printer (Printrbot) and never even knew that you could print directly from Slic3r. But I do print via USB for exactly the same reasons you describe. I use Repetier Host to connect to the printer and send the G-code.
Repetier Host has the advantage that it really gives you a pretty nice "control panel" for the printer. And it's a backup double-check that the G-code actually does what you want it to do (you can see non-printing travel moves, for example). Back in the earlier days, I needed Repetier to examine the print layer by layer to see if thin features were actually going to print, although now Slic3r gives you a pretty good preview.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
it seems so strange that theres all these steps in between the slicer and the machine doing work. i figured it would be most straight forward if you sent the gcode all at once to the printer over USB. i mean, i see no reason to stream the gcode to the printer. its like - its created this odd phenomena where nobody wants to print directly from their PC because they think its unsafe.
It boggles the mind why I cant just hit print, have one program (slice3r) send all the data to the printer, and then slice3r just monitors the printer do its thing. there's a storage media in the printer - the sd card.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
heh this just in: laserjet printer wants to user friendly so requires sd cards to print documents. more at 11.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
checked out repetier. god its still terrible having to upload a gcode file from elsewhere. this functionality really needs to be built into slic3r. i dont know how they ever intend on being user-friendly without being able to simply use your machine with one software program, insisting people use gcode files and bollocks third party servers & things.
might have a look at regular slic3r or whats the other one called? simplify3D.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
The simple reason not to print via USB is that on Windows PC's, which constitutes ~80% worldwide, updates to the OS can cause reboots when you may be printing. Also, while blue screen errors are few and far between now, if you have a blue screen error during printing the print is toast.
The reason it was removed from Prusa's Slic3r is that Prusa has rewritten the whole thing from scratch and certain sacrifices had to be made. They have said it may be brought back in a future release but I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
yeah looks like simplify3D has this sorted:
If you are printing from the SD card, you can unplug the USB cable from your printer after the print has started. The firmware will continue printing the file on the SD card. In addition, if you are using a machine that transfers the entire print file before starting the print, you may also unplug the USB cable after the print has started since there is no more information to transfer.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
It boggles the mind why I cant just hit print, have one program (slice3r) send all the data to the printer, and then slice3r just monitors the printer do its thing. there's a storage media in the printer - the sd card.
The problem with that is that the ATMega2560 CPU inside the printer doesn't have the processing power to act as USB storage. The bandwidth to both USB and to the SD card is miniscule. It's good enough for printing from the SD or for streaming, because the slowest link is the print itself, but putting the gcode on the SD card via USB would take a long time, less than a whole print, but too long to wait for it.
The solution is simple. Add a Raspberry Pi (Zero or 2B/3B+) and have a web enabled network printer that can do all you're asking for and more.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
The simple reason not to print via USB is that on Windows PC's, which constitutes ~80% worldwide, updates to the OS can cause reboots when you may be printing. Also, while blue screen errors are few and far between now, if you have a blue screen error during printing the print is toast.
The reason it was removed from Prusa's Slic3r is that Prusa has rewritten the whole thing from scratch and certain sacrifices had to be made. They have said it may be brought back in a future release but I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon.
it seems that they should just transfer the gcode to the device while its printing so then it doesn't matter what happens to your PC. and i don't use windows. like i said this makes no sense at all. it seems like such a goofy thing to use sd cards when theres a perfectly good USB cable.
it hardly even seems like a very challenging feature to implement. is it too consuming of the cpu to do printing whilst also streaming a gcode to the sdcard? its 250000 baud. i worked out it takes 5 minutes to send 8mb of gcode.
for this to be unjustifiable its either too much work for the microprocessor in the printer (odd since its DMA, and it takes longer to execute any gcode command than to stream it) or the serial connection in windows is too flakey to survive even 5 minutes. i mean if you buy a printer, you get USB. or ethernet. this just does not add up.
its just so ridiculous that we cant use one of the ten billion technical solutions to send a few megabytes of data over a max 5m cable and resort to walking & back & forwards with floppy disks. or we use different programs to export and then upload a 'gcode file'. i mean, call me odd but i don't even see why 3d printing should be deterministic but thats a rant for another day.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
It boggles the mind why I cant just hit print, have one program (slice3r) send all the data to the printer, and then slice3r just monitors the printer do its thing. there's a storage media in the printer - the sd card.
The problem with that is that the ATMega2560 CPU inside the printer doesn't have the processing power to act as USB storage. The bandwidth to both USB and to the SD card is miniscule. It's good enough for printing from the SD or for streaming, because the slowest link is the print itself, but putting the gcode on the SD card via USB would take a long time, less than a whole print, but too long to wait for it.
The solution is simple. Add a Raspberry Pi (Zero or 2B/3B+) and have a web enabled network printer that can do all you're asking for and more.
so you're saying that its fast enough to read from the SD card to print, or good enough to stream, but the bandwidth is not good enough to stream and print?
why not stream in real time while you also save to the SD card? i dont buy this.
im sorry man but buying a third computer with its own entire operating system to control the printer by wiring into its GPIO pins is not a reasonable solution just because they yanked out the option to print over a 2 metre cable. now youre just streaming the data via the GPIO pins from an ARM computer, instead of printing via USB from an x86 computer.
and they both run linux!!!
like i said nothing about this adds up. unless theres a way to hit 'print' in slic3r over the network, without having to 'export' any kind of file then thats at least a solution, even if overly complicated - it'd still do the job.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
just did some googling on the rambo board and its atmega chips. they have bucket loads of bandwidth. it has 12mbit USB support, working in bulk, interrupt and isochronous modes and the atmega 2560 main CPU has four high speed USARTs. theres no DMA which is peculiar but theres plenty of timing interrupts. theres no need to bit-bang anything.
this board is kinda a tank with IO up the wazoo. what is the bottleneck? i cant seem to find anything on the SD card reader
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
it seems that they should just transfer the gcode to the device while its printing so then it doesn't matter what happens to your PC. and i don't use windows. like i said this makes no sense at all. it seems like such a goofy thing to use sd cards when theres a perfectly good USB cable.
it hardly even seems like a very challenging feature to implement. is it too consuming of the cpu to do printing whilst also streaming a gcode to the sdcard? its 250000 baud. i worked out it takes 5 minutes to send 8mb of gcode.
for this to be unjustifiable its either too much work for the microprocessor in the printer (odd since its DMA, and it takes longer to execute any gcode command than to stream it) or the serial connection in windows is too flakey to survive even 5 minutes. i mean if you buy a printer, you get USB. or ethernet. this just does not add up.
There is no DMA on the ATMega2560. All it has is a serial port with a single byte buffer, not even a proper FIFO. Similarly, there is no DMA for the SD card, which is connected over SPI. Again, single byte buffer that the CPU has to service byte by byte via interrupt. At a measly 16 MHz. Yes, the I3 MK3 CPU is outdated.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
it seems that they should just transfer the gcode to the device while its printing so then it doesn't matter what happens to your PC. and i don't use windows. like i said this makes no sense at all. it seems like such a goofy thing to use sd cards when theres a perfectly good USB cable.
it hardly even seems like a very challenging feature to implement. is it too consuming of the cpu to do printing whilst also streaming a gcode to the sdcard? its 250000 baud. i worked out it takes 5 minutes to send 8mb of gcode.
for this to be unjustifiable its either too much work for the microprocessor in the printer (odd since its DMA, and it takes longer to execute any gcode command than to stream it) or the serial connection in windows is too flakey to survive even 5 minutes. i mean if you buy a printer, you get USB. or ethernet. this just does not add up.
There is no DMA on the ATMega2560. All it has is a serial port with a single byte buffer, not even a proper FIFO. Similarly, there is no DMA for the SD card, which is connected over SPI. Again, single byte buffer that the CPU has to service byte by byte via interrupt. At a measly 16 MHz. Yes, the I3 MK3 CPU is outdated.
you're right i just saw. oh god. this is so depressing. this puts things into perspective. man. i just saw another thread which details a little bit about why it can't do streaming live while printing - some new features in the new firmware.
this sucks! looking at this sd card that has wifi enabled. :/
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
@Dave: I'm not advocating the removal of the USB option in Slic3r, that's a clear decrease in usability. I'm merely explaining why saving the gcode on the SD through USB is impractical.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
you're right i just saw. oh god. this is so depressing. this puts things into perspective. man. i just saw another thread which details a little bit about why it can't do streaming live while printing - some new features in the new firmware.
this sucks! looking at this sd card that has wifi enabled. :/
And I should also mention that the CPU is 8-bit only. And has a whopping 8192 bytes of RAM. That's bytes.
And that the SD card with WiFi has a 32-bit ARM (or MIPS) CPU in it and an OS running on the CPU, actually it's pretty much a Raspberry Pi in a SD card form factor.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
Bro, you should just give the raspberry pi a try. I understand you would rather stream from your x86 but honestly the pi works really well.
And you can send the file from slic3r direct to the pi with one click and it will automatically start printing after the file transfers (just a couple seconds even for large files).
It's pretty dang seamless and user friendly.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
Or running Octoprint right on the x86 computer and skipping the Pi. Slic3r should be able to communicate with Octoprint even on the x86, with the same kind of seamless experience. (I didn't try yet.)
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
hey you two raise very valid points. god i didnt realize how weenie the chip really was. i thought it would at least have DMA.
hrm running octoprint on the PC thats a new one. how do ya figure that? bunch of jumper wires along the carpet connected up to the GPIO pins of the printer?
i should apologize for my earlier rantmode mood. its just this turns my world upside down. at least theres real legit reasons for this.
i heard horror stories about the raspi-w not wanting to work properly cos of a wifi bug or something? what do you guys know about that? this is all so terrible. there is nothing worse that could happen to a person ever.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
actually i think i have a raspi with ethernet plug just spare sitting over there. and it has an sd card in it. maybe you guys are right. i can ethernet the PC to it.
it kinda warps my understanding of things a bit. the printer still needs its firmware right? and the octopi software just sorta ... actually im confused. i'm just gonna eat this apple i got out of the pantry & sulk for a bit.
RE: USB printing gone (!!!)
Octoprint on the Raspberry Pi will use a serial port (TTL, 3V) to talk to the Einsy. A serial port nevertheless. /dev/ttyS. It can just as easily use /dev/ttyACM USB serial port that the Einsy presents to Linux and will not notice a difference. Even some Raspberry users use the USB connection instead of wiring the pins. So a Linux with USB can use Octoprint on the same computer to connect Slic3r to the Einsy. 😉 And you get a nice web interface as a bonus.