Wired Network Speed
After upgrading my MK4/MMU3 to the MK4S/MMU3 and firmware 6.1.3 I believe that the network download speed has slowed down somewhat.
Maybe I am just sensitive to the download speed in general as a continuing problem with the MK4.
It took over 10 seconds to download a 458K file. My MK4S is connected with CAT6 cable to the same 1Gb smart switch.
Is this still a known issue? Is anyone working on it?
RE: Wired Network Speed
It's definitely frustrating when things don't work as expected.
From what I found, there haven't been any widespread reports specifically mentioning network download speed issues with firmware 6.1.3. However, it's possible that there might be a bug or an issue that hasn't been widely recognized yet.
Data Recovery Software
RE: Wired Network Speed
I've heard people complain about this before and just don't get it. I don't remember the last print I did that was less than 30 minutes and most are measured in hours, so time taken to download is irrelevant as a part of total time. I tell something to print from my PC and walk away, 5-15 minutes later I have a quick look (normally via the camera) to check it's running OK and carry on with my day.
RE: Wired Network Speed
I can send a 10MB pring job to my laser printer in less than it takes a 400K file to the Prusa. It's better than it was but it's not up to what it should be.
I agree I would rather they spend more coding time on 3D printer, but network stacks are a dime a dozen these days.
It's a matter of software quality.
RE: Wired Network Speed
Why do you think this has anything to do with network speed? Perhaps it's the limited ability to write to the USB Key flash itself that is the limiting factor. How could we test this?
Prusa MK4 since Jan 2024, Printables: @MikeB_1505898
RE: Wired Network Speed
It has everything to do with network speed. Twisted pair networks (10BaseT, 100BaseT and 1000BaseT) have an overhead, with collisions, of about 50%. That means that you only get about half of the actual network speed as throughput.
With that in mind if you are running 100Mhz (100BaseT) there will be an average transfer speed of about 50Mbits/Second or 6.25MBytes/second.
A 1GB network will give you an average transfer speed of 500MBits/Second or 62.5MBytes/Second.
Note: These numbers assume that there is no other traffic over the network except for the two devices in the "conversation".
So, using these numbers, transferring 1 MByte file should, in theory, take approximately 168mS (thousandths of a second) on the 100MBit network and 17mS on the 1 GBit network.
As I said before other network traffic can increase these transfer times.
Note: This example uses twisted pair wired networks as an example. The same applies to WiFi but with WiFi the distance between the sender and the access point and the receiver and the access point affect raw network speed.
So, that explains why network speed is important in debugging file transfer speed issues.
When actual transfer speeds between the sender (the computer in this case) and the receiver (the printer in this case) drop below 10K Bytes/Second there is usually a problem with the receiver not being able to keep up with the speed of the data. This can be that the receiver microprocessor is too slow or that the receiver network software is inefficient.
This has been a problem with the MK4 since it first came out. With file transfer speeds in the minutes for relatively small files.
Yes, when a print takes 18 hours, why does anyone care that is takes a couple of minutes to transfer the file. That is a valid question but transfer speed is expected to be fast whereas print speed is expected to be slow.
I should be able to download a print file to my MK4 in less time than it takes to download that file from printables.com
RE: Wired Network Speed
Use OctoPrint and all issues are gone...
As a benefit, you can use a few GPIOs and a real network.