What time does my MINI+ think it is right now?
This may sound like a strange question... but can I see a time somewhere on the MINI+?
The completion estimates are consistently off, but I'm not sure why or exactly by how much. It *may* be my own fault (I might not have had the timezone set correctly up until now), but, it seems like a really odd omission that the current time / what the printer thinks the time is, is not displayed anywhere.
The only time-related setting I can find in the UI on the printer is timezone, which is set to UTC+1 (I'm in London, and we have British Summer Time right now).
There is no indication of time on the home screen, in any of the info screens, or in the PrusaLink web dashboard.
If it is not just a case of me looking in the wrong place - it might be helpful to add this in a future firmware revision!
Best Answer by _KaszpiR_:
Menu > Info > System Info and then second value from the top will show date and time.
At the start it is:
01-01 00:00
then it should show:
month-day hours:minutes
but that probably depends on the Locale/Language.
Also looks like time is synced once every 30 minutes.
My mini gets noticeable time skew after 30min (something around minutes).
RE:
Menu > Info > System Info and then second value from the top will show date and time.
At the start it is:
01-01 00:00
then it should show:
month-day hours:minutes
but that probably depends on the Locale/Language.
Also looks like time is synced once every 30 minutes.
My mini gets noticeable time skew after 30min (something around minutes).
See my GitHub and printables.com for some 3d stuff that you may like.
RE: What time does my MINI+ think it is right now?
See my GitHub and printables.com for some 3d stuff that you may like.
RE: What time does my MINI+ think it is right now?
Oh, I was sure I looked there, but I will take another look and see! Thanks for the pointer.
RE: What time does my MINI+ think it is right now?
ok, looks like for Mini+ time is synced once per 1 hour https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware-Buddy/blob/v4.4.1/lib/WUI/sntp/sntp_opts.h#L171C13-L171C31 (unless someone defined that flag to be different when compiling...)
See my GitHub and printables.com for some 3d stuff that you may like.
RE:
Oh, thank you for the research here. I’ll also have a poke around on GitHub. It would be nice if it was straightforward to compile and flash firmware modifications for ourselves, I guess. Definitely would want to think about setting an alternate list of NTP servers, and change the sync frequency. I’ve seen Prusa team make some references to improving the MINI+ firmware so fingers crossed we might see some updates here.
You linked to the 4.4.1 firmware tag, I just looked at 5.0 alpha in the tree and no obvious differences there.
RE: What time does my MINI+ think it is right now?
Ironically in the 4.4.1 (last update for the MINI/MINI+) release notes:
RTC fixed
In order for the printer to remember the correct time, the RTC (Real Time Clock) was implemented. Users reported that this feature sometimes misbehaved and as a result, the printer displayed the incorrect time when the print will be finished. This is now fixed.
However, keep in mind that the timezone has to be set manually, otherwise the feature will not work
RE: What time does my MINI+ think it is right now?
Notice that gcode (also the same data is shown in prusa slicer) shows how much time will it take to print it only, but you still need to account for bed head up, cool down and model cleanup after print.
Frankly speaking I stopped caring at the time printer shows, and switched to calculating rough estimations prior print by taking gcode time and then adding about extra 15min - and it is for me enough to see if I can fit in given time windows (like before leaving to work or going to bed), because I do not like to leave printer unattended.
See my GitHub and printables.com for some 3d stuff that you may like.
RE: What time does my MINI+ think it is right now?
Closing this out for now:
- you can see the time in the Info->System Info screen, defaults to 01-01 00:00 until network connection is established and NTP sync occurs
- usability suggestion, I'd suggest having something more obvious in the UI on the printer, and also the ability to see the time in whichever web UI the MINI+ has in the future (PrusaLink / Connect)
- reliability suggestion, I'd suggest executing on the TODO in the NTP code and have the MINI+ talk to a pool of NTP servers rather than a single hard-coded IP address.
Thanks for the help on this one!