Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)  

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

The real problem is that nobody's cleaning up and prioritizing the open issues, which makes it hard to see what actually needs work. But such is the curse of open source development: everyone wants to code, and nobody wants to work on project management.

Indeed! Thankfully to balance out the curse, we are blessed with some exceptionally capable contributors, which begs the question, is in existence a fork that is or has the potential to be managed better? Do we have any break-aways?

filament response warning and then unable to resume print

It seems after firmware upgrade to 3.4.0, the printer does not resume print after low filament sensor response warning. After I reload the filament (after the warning), the head just returns to where it left off and SITS there without doing anything. I then press RESUME print on the display and it homes and then crashes into my print.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

Hey guys, just my 2 cents.
I run 3.4.0 since release and i got absolutely no problems with it. Filamentsensor is always on. Mostly small jobs, but also some prints >6h with no problems too. Everything is printed directly from SD.

now i got problems too. 😮
deactivate the sensor fix the problem for the first time.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

I'm hoping there is an easy answer here...
I recently upgraded firmware to this version 3.4.0 and had to cancel a print because I realized I had not recalibrated after flashing.
Now there is definitely something wrong with a stored setting... I cannot manually move the Z axis below a certain height.
If I try to raise the z axis above the top, it grinds but then I can bring it down lower.
I can do this enough to get the z axis back down to the bed, but then during calibration it raises way too high again.
Z=0 is somewhere around halfway up, now.
Help?
I have tried a factory reset but it did not fix this.
Could it be the stopped print caused something incorrect to be stored?

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

I have tried a factory reset but it did not fix this.

Are you absolutely certain you actually did a FULL factory reset, as there are 4 choices and sometimes the LCD reacts so slowly it can be easy to make a mistake.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

So it looks like I missed the menu but then went back and found it and did "all data". Same response.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

until today i used the 3.4.0 but now i have to roll back to 3.3.1

1) stealth mode not working
2) random pauses during printing (1-2 seconds every 10 seconds)

point 1 is probably a simple bug and will be fixed.

regarding point 2 i read on github that pauses are regular operations for filament detection (extruder motor is moving).
in my opinion these interruptions affects too much printing time and could lead to printing quality problems.

however, thanks to prusa team for support and developing

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

Has anyone tried 3.4.1 (pre-release) yet? Released yesterday on github but not mentioned on the main prusa firmware site.
https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware/releases

I'll probably give it a go this weekend... Nothing ventured, nothing gained 😀

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

I rolled 3.4 out and had some real odd stuff going on - prints that used to work fine went to **** in a hand cart , first layer extrusion became really unpredictable, some places over extruded, some under but no consistency in where, infill didn't meet perimeters even with 40% overlap. I even had to ditch the revised cooling because the nozzle ooze became a real problem - note that many of the issues were prints with the same material and same gcode that produced prints months ago with zero issues.

Gave up in the end, rolling back to 3.3.1 fixed a number of issues but not all oddly enough.

I'm currently looking at whats changed between 3.3.1 and 3.4.1, I'm wondering with what I'm seeing whether the memory space has finally become an issue, but I really think some of the problems are related to how the 2130 steppers are being managed.

I got into the printing to print parts for models - I'm spending more time tinkering with the printer than building the models now, burned through 2kg of filament just trying to get some confidence back in it but it is so bad now I don't feel comfortable leaving it printing unsupervised ... it used to be so much better.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

I got into the printing to print parts for models - I'm spending more time tinkering with the printer than building the models now, burned through 2kg of filament just trying to get some confidence back in it but it is so bad now I don't feel comfortable leaving it printing unsupervised ... it used to be so much better.

I have tried the first 2 post-33f binary releases and then subsequently reverted. I thought to share what continues to prove for me the best solution yet, is simply the 33 final firmware, and using a variation (the variation unknown to me, the creator doesn't document 😎 ) of the R3 filament fan duct/holder, and that's it, no other R3 stuff. I can't make my MK3 fail save doing really dumb stuff. Just last night I printed a squaring tools 0.3 that covered the bed corner to corner to corner, basically flawless print. The day before a 180 tall spiral vase, flawless at 0.1. It's just fire and forget now, with no custom settings other than pre start gcode from Sean to kill the oozing and whatnot.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3078174

Use the arm from the R3 kit.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

.....pre start gcode from Sean to kill the oozing and whatnot.
....

Please share so I don't have to hunt. Thanks!

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

Please share so I don't have to hunt. Thanks!

Printer Settings / Start G-Code:

; M115 U3.4.0 ; tell printer latest fw version
M201 X1000 Y1000 Z200 E5000 ; sets maximum accelerations, mm/sec^2
M203 X200 Y200 Z12 E120 ; sets maximum feedrates, mm/sec
M204 S1250 T1250 ; sets acceleration (S) and retract acceleration (T)
M205 X10 Y10 Z0.4 E2.5 ; sets the jerk limits, mm/sec
M205 S0 T0 ; sets the minimum extruding and travel feed rate, mm/sec
M83 ; extruder relative mode
M104 S170 ; set extruder temp to 170c to preheat nozzle, yet not ooze.
M140 S[first_layer_bed_temperature] ; set bed temp
M190 S[first_layer_bed_temperature] ; wait for bed temp
M106 S255 ; Turn cooling fan on to harden outside of oozy filament
M109 S[first_layer_temperature] ; Bring extruder to full first-layer temp.
G28 W ; home all without mesh bed level
G80 ; mesh bed leveling
G1 Y-3.0 F1000.0 ; go outside print area
M106 S0 ; Turn cooling fan off before printing anything
G92 E0.0
G1 X60.0 E9.0 F1000.0 ; intro line
G1 X100.0 E12.5 F1000.0 ; intro line
G92 E0.0
M221 S{if layer_height<0.075}100{else}95{endif}


I made a change or two probably from Sean's nothing major probably. Hope this helps!

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

I hadn't seen these gcode adjustments, I appreciate you posting them and I'm going to try them out and try to understand the reasoning behind them. Only comment that I have is that I typically remove the extrusion 'fudge' aka the line below

M221 S{if layer_height<0.075}100{else}95{endif}

and have my extrusion multiplier set instead because I've found the behaviour differs between even seemingly identical materials but different manufacturers. The Prusa settings seem more geared toward PLA - and Prusa's own PLA at that. I print PLA, PETG, Nylon12 and occasionally Carbonyte, I'm pretty exclusively a Rigid ink user as I found same 'material' and different brand = more tinkering so I stick to the same supplier.

However it this extrusion thing got worse with 3.4 even with the fudge and was all over the place which I think may offer some clues if I can figure out what they changed that is related. I don't think the inconsistent extrusion thing is getting much attention any more and I think it is all related.

One thing that I should add is that I use a plated copper heat block (E3D) and a hardened nozzle, I also run PT100 with amplifier (because of the Nylon etc), so my thermal stability is much better than the Prusa original supply.

One thing I noted about the new cooling is that the hot end is much better so I retained that but the fan mount and shroud don't like the higher temperatures at all, the fan shroud sags even when printed with ABS, if you don't run the fan at 260 or above the shroud can sag enough to kill a print - the original design doesn't seem to have this problem.

There is certainly a relationship between temperature and extrusion - but volumetric extrusion I've had zero success with (and the code has no temperature corrections in the formula in any case). It is interesting to note that the latest Marlin builds have done a lot of work in this area but this hasn't found its way into Prusa. The 'volumetric E' constant 'K' changes totally in the new version of Marlin.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

I hadn't seen these gcode adjustments, I appreciate you posting them and I'm going to try them out and try to understand the reasoning behind them. Only comment that I have is that I typically remove the extrusion 'fudge' aka the line below

M221 S{if layer_height<0.075}100{else}95{endif}

Here is Sean's original post:
https://shop.prusa3d.com/forum/hardware-firmware-and-software-help-f64/power-supply-failure-t13443-s450.html#p74731

a snippet:

"Here's my custom one that prevents oozing, and oozey-bits sticking to the PEI sheet.
Pre-heat the nozzle to a "cold" temp, once "full preheat" starts, turn cooling fan on, which keeps any "ooze" from sticking to anything. Once full pre-heat, perform bed-leveling. Then before printing the inital "purge" extrude, turn fan off. I've never had a "blob" stick to the PEI sheet since I started using this script."

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

Appreciated, I hadn't seen that post, although I don't tend to spend a lot of time here. Interesting that I just did a trial of this and my printer flat out ignored the M104 S170 - did nothing and proceeded to heat the bed ... the investigation begins. I'm still reading through code and hoping for a eureka moment but I need to understand the stepper control in some detail and vendor documentation to see if and where it is misapplied or simply 'as good as it can be'. I'll post if I find anything.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

Appreciated, I hadn't seen that post, although I don't tend to spend a lot of time here. Interesting that I just did a trial of this and my printer flat out ignored the M104 S170 - did nothing and proceeded to heat the bed ... the investigation begins. I'm still reading through code and hoping for a eureka moment but I need to understand the stepper control in some detail and vendor documentation to see if and where it is misapplied or simply 'as good as it can be'. I'll post if I find anything.

Who knows maybe I screwed up whatever edits I did to Sean's code, but you can always try one of his original variants for a quick test of that. Myself I'm done for a couple days printing as life has intervened.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

Printer Settings / Start G-Code:

; M115 U3.4.0 ; tell printer latest fw version
M201 X1000 Y1000 Z200 E5000 ; sets maximum accelerations, mm/sec^2
M203 X200 Y200 Z12 E120 ; sets maximum feedrates, mm/sec
M204 S1250 T1250 ; sets acceleration (S) and retract acceleration (T)
M205 X10 Y10 Z0.4 E2.5 ; sets the jerk limits, mm/sec
M205 S0 T0 ; sets the minimum extruding and travel feed rate, mm/sec
M83 ; extruder relative mode
M104 S170 ; set extruder temp to 170c to preheat nozzle, yet not ooze.
M140 S[first_layer_bed_temperature] ; set bed temp
M190 S[first_layer_bed_temperature] ; wait for bed temp
M106 S255 ; Turn cooling fan on to harden outside of oozy filament
M109 S[first_layer_temperature] ; Bring extruder to full first-layer temp.
G28 W ; home all without mesh bed level
G80 ; mesh bed leveling
G1 Y-3.0 F1000.0 ; go outside print area
M106 S0 ; Turn cooling fan off before printing anything
G92 E0.0
G1 X60.0 E9.0 F1000.0 ; intro line
G1 X100.0 E12.5 F1000.0 ; intro line
G92 E0.0
M221 S{if layer_height<0.075}100{else}95{endif}


I made a change or two probably from Sean's nothing major probably. Hope this helps!

Many thanks Pathogen!

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

Am I the only one that the filament sensor is reporting more errors now than before? I have three printers and all three stop in the middle of the print to handle the filamentsensor error. Before 3.4.0, I never had this problem.

I've got same error as well, right after upgrading to 3.4.0, before it was fine. It triggered in dark night, while printing and then after re-loading the filament it traveled almost to zero, while ripping the printed material during travel to last print location.

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

Just updated my firmware and ran a new print. About halfway through the print my filament was running low, so I turned on the filament sensor.

As usual, the sensor false triggered for me to change the filament before it ran out. No biggie as I simulated the swap and waiting for the print to resume.

That's where things took a very odd turn. The print head moved back to its last position, heated up, then slowly moved back to home, colliding with and melting the already printed print on the way. Once it made it's way back to the home position, it started the print all over again, crashing the head into the print.

Luckily I caught it and reset the printer before any major damage.

The odd part is that the print, after the filament trigger, moved extremely slow and it acted like it didn't complete the majority of the print, which it did.

Definitely, something buggy happening with the filament sensor and resuming the print. Happy to provide pictures or the Gcode if needed. -- Picture attached - you can see where it went back to printing position on the far right, then to home, and then back into the print again before I caught it and stopped the print.

Will likely move back to the previous firmware before trying the print again. Always hate a waste of filament, especially the nice stuff.

Exactly same for me...

Re: Firmware 3.4.0 for Original Prusa i3 MK3 (final release)

There is a new release! Ready to test 3.4.1-RC1? 😎
https://shop.prusa3d.com/forum/general-discussion-announcements-and-releases-f61/firmware-3-4-1-rc1-for-original-prusa-i3-mk3-t24855.html#p109548