SD Card vrs USB Stick
I would to suggest as an improvement for future models, that they be able to read a USB Stick rather than SD Card.
I find SD card reader/writers are finicky and tend to fail within the computer or as a peripheral.
USB sticks tend to be more durable and are more popular.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
This will happen anyway with the next iteration of the board going 32bit. MK3 series will most likely not change anymore.
Often linked posts:
Going small with MMU2
Real Multi Material
My prints on Instagram
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
Yeah - SD is dead simple and fairly lightweight to read with an 8 bit micro. I'm not an expert but IIRC USB is quite a bit more complicated and so it doesn't make sense to do that until the architecture changes.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
Any real advance will come with a 32 bit board. I would expect it to eliminate the SD card
and, like my paper printer, interface with the world by Wifi. Like, you know, OctoPrint.
Maybe have an extra USB port for those flash drives, like the Raspberry Pi.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
Considering that the latest printer released by Prusa (the MINI) uses a USB instead of SD slot, and is Prusa's first 32bit controller board, I would expect to see this on the new 32bit boards released by Prusa. AFAIR at ERRF Josef was saying that the 32bit board on the MINI wouldn't be appropriate for the i3 line because it wasn't designed for the power demands of the i3 printers. I think he was also saying that he was envisioning a separate controller board design for each of the 3 FFF lines; MINI, i3, and XL.
I'm ignoring the SL1 in this discussion for two reasons:
- I don't have one so I'm not familiar with it. Technically I suppose this printer could be the first 32bit board, but I really don't know what technology board is in this printer.
- AFAIR Prusa bought the design and just finished it to bring it to market. (haha... "just"... I'm sure Prusa R&D would be insulted by the insinuation of "just"...) So, even if the SL1 board is 32bit, it may not be the first Prusa designed board. Though, I wonder how many techniques (hardware and firmware) they learned from the SL1 control board and display were leveraged for the MINI control & display.
See my (limited) designs on:
Printables - https://www.printables.com/@Sembazuru
Thingiverse - https://www.thingiverse.com/Sembazuru/designs
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
For economies of scale, I can not see Prusa having a different controller board for each printer line.
It makes the most sense to me to have a general purpose board like Ramps (32 bit version) with add-on high current drivers
appropriate to the line. They definitely want only one version of the software (configurable) across all lines.
Costs too much to support multiple incompatible versions.
Of course, at any point Josef can prove me wrong.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
I think it's more that they don't want to paint themselves into a corner trying to anticipate their needs for future models with the mini board. When you're ordering thousands of boards already, there's probably not much further down you can go in terms of bulk discount. I would think PR does enough business that's a non-issue. So far better to not artificially limit yourself to what you thought you would need at the time.
It's also not always cheaper. You might bring down the cost for the more expensive printer a small amount because the board is common, but you will bring up the cost for the cheaper one because it now needs to support the additional features either because they are there and disabled, or through e.g. connectors for the necessary hardware changes.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
Any real advance will come with a 32 bit board. I would expect it to eliminate the SD card
and, like my paper printer, interface with the world by Wifi. Like, you know, OctoPrint.
Maybe have an extra USB port for those flash drives, like the Raspberry Pi.
Hi Robert - SD card still useful as local storage for printer. Commercially files uploaded by ethernet, wifi or USB (stick or wired). Stored and run from printers SD card. All other connections are just used for monitoring or remote adjustments. Running a two day print live over WiFi is a disaster waiting to happen. 🙂 Not much better running over USB cable from PC, Pi or whatever, that goes off and print is dead.. Running from printers SD is still the most reliable method by far.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
Just to mention - Prusa's latest - the Mini - has no SD card.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
Just to mention - Prusa's latest - the Mini - has no SD card.
Yea - running via ethernet (or usb) according to blurb. Dunno whether it's capable of stand alone mode, doesn't say? They did design for their print farm according to Joseph and I doubt that's being run from a crappy, less than reliable home PC. 🤣 😏
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
No one would run a printer from a PC. Well except for the people that use Pronterface.
Prints are staged to the controller, and they are printed from there.
This is the method OctoPrint uses. There is a connection to the PC for only a few moments while the print is staged.
During your 12 hour print, the PC does not / would not be connected or even powered on.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
No one would run a printer from a PC. Well except for the people that use Pronterface.
Prints are staged to the controller, and they are printed from there.
This is the method OctoPrint uses. There is a connection to the PC for only a few moments while the print is staged.
During your 12 hour print, the PC does not / would not be connected or even powered on.
Doesn't Octoprint load the job to the printers SD card and control runs it from there? I've played with Octoprint briefly only as a method of remotely monitoring, nothing more.
Pronterface is like the 80's DNC method where it uses the USB as a serial connection to drip feed the gcode to the control. Some CNC controls still operate that way and rely on PC, MAC, Pi or whatever to be connected and operational to actually run the job! Madness.. 🤪
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
@stev-10
"Doesn't Octoprint load the job to the printers SD card and control runs it from there? I've played with Octoprint briefly only as a method of remotely monitoring, nothing more. " No, I don't think so. It send each gcode and waits for an acknowledge.
See this thread on Octoprint forum https://community.octoprint.org/t/flow-control-between-octoprint-and-printer/14649
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
Just a short note to the above.
OctoPrint does not touch the SD card unless you specifically ask it to copy files.
And the interface is far too slow to ever do that.
It sends commands to the Einsy, one GCode at a time, in real time.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
Just a short note to the above.
OctoPrint does not touch the SD card unless you specifically ask it to copy files.
And the interface is far too slow to ever do that.
It sends commands to the Einsy, one GCode at a time, in real time.
Thanks Robert, I'm not a fan of that style of "real time" control. Just an added layer of potential problems 😉
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
@stev-10
It does add some complexity but also is very convenient both for initiating and monitoring a print, especially if you use a raspberry with Wifi.
Seems to me that two independent pieces of hardware running two very different tasks is better than trying to jam both tasks on one piece of hardware (imagine how unhappy you'd be if the monitoring task crashed and dragged down the printing task).
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
As far as I am concerned my Pi is part of my printer. It is mounted to the printer frame, runs off the printer PSU, and powers off when the printer does.
I would as soon complain about the separate servo drivers on the Einsy board as complain about the added complexity of the Pi. It is part of the package.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
@stev-10
It does add some complexity but also is very convenient both for initiating and monitoring a print, especially if you use a raspberry with Wifi.
Seems to me that two independent pieces of hardware running two very different tasks is better than trying to jam both tasks on one piece of hardware (imagine how unhappy you'd be if the monitoring task crashed and dragged down the printing task).
I agree - it is convenient for initiating and monitoring a print and that mode works well. What I don't like is where the independant remote device drip feeds commands to the control. I've seen that fail so many times in different circumstances in industrial and commercial applications and it's not something I'd choose.
RE: SD Card vrs USB Stick
@stev-10
I guess the problem is if you wish to remotely initiate and monitor the only mechanism that I'm aware of is to "drip feed" GCodes to the printer. You should not that no modification are made to the printer so that the SD slot is still available to run prints if you so desire.
Personally I have no experience of 3d printing until the Mini becomes available, but never the less I've played with Octoprint and the only downside I see is that you have to buy a Raspberry.