print gcode files to miniMaker (Page 11 of 16)

I've been trying to get this to work with my da Vinci Mini W without much luck.  I think I'm missing something.  Is there a read me somewhere that explains how to set it up, and the workflow?

Thanks for any help.

I spent most of my weekend on vacation!  However I managed to get a few hours in this afternoon to start putting my notes together.  I put everything I could find together into a few new documents.  I have a reasonable start on how the usb v2 protocol works. I still need to work out the file upload protocol but otherwise it is fairly complete.

I'm not sure how far to take the v1 protocol, it appears that almost none of the calls are even encoded in the XYZMaker executable.  Chances are no one is using this protocol anymore.

The 2.1 Plus also has a camera - it essentially seems to be the 1.1 Plus interface on a 2.0 Duo platform.  They have a dedicated Android app for the 1.1 Plus, I would assume the 2.1 Plus is compatible despite not being listed as a supported model.

Apparently, the idea was to download, print and monitor via the App, but I have never used this functionality.

I was tired last night, I was attempting to say adding a camera was the obvious choice, but somehow it got twisted around when I wrote it out

Anyway was the 2.1 Plus ever released?  I have seen subtle hints about it in XYZWare, but could not find it on any of there websites.  It looks like they had plans for a 2.0A and a 2.0 AiO (3in1) as well, along with 1.1A and 1.1 AiO machines as well.  However I doubt they made it past the prototype stages, at least they probably don't work with XYZWare.

Along those lines, it seems to me that XYZPrintings biggest shortcoming is not there proprietary filaments, there is always a segment of the market who is happy to pay more for a reduced hassle factor, however it is that they keep adding printer models without retiring the older units and end up confusing there buyers. 

In my mind they should really only have 3 lines, the full size 1.x, the smaller Jr, and the budget mini.  All should be built on the same underlying hardware and each new iteration should replace the previous model.  That is as much as possible the 1.0A uses the same electronics, motors, and harness as the older 1.0, upgrading only what must be upgraded to move the model forward.

They can offer the scanner/no scanner variants but should let you pay to get a dongle to open the filament restrictions.  The scanner cost them real money to add, but loosening the filament restrictions can be taken care of in software.  The only cost there is the potential loss of sales of filament.  In total that would be 6 models, plus whatever they want to do on the high end side with there color/jumbo printers.   Right now I'm counting at least 24 known models and possibly up to 51 variations on those models!

Dual extruders should be a drop in upgrade for the Jr and 1.x line, along with the laser module, I would imagine running the wires for dual extruders would be almost free, they just need to have a clip on extruder motor and a second print head (or a nozzle that can mix filament).  WiFi should also be built into all models, and be of a higher quality than what they have.  I could add wifi for less than $8, so there cost has to be almost nothing.  Cameras should also be included in everything but the mini line and at this point in time everything but the mini should have a touch screen as well.

That way there is a strong delineator between the mini and jr lines, eve though they use the same material and have the same build volumes.  And the customers only need to make two major decisions, do I want a larger build volume and heated bed support, and do I want a scanner included.

I'm not sure if the 2.1 Plus was ever released, but it seems that there was a unit(s) flaunted about the shows and at least a couple of hands on reviews. I was reading through a list of upgrades and aftermarket parts people had fitted to their 1.0 model printers to try and improve the quality of their prints - I have to say that apart from a *z-stepper brace*, it seems that the 1.1 Plus (or I was lucky with mine at least) had a much improved build quality.

There is very little to no slop in the mechanical function of the bed and rails, belts are tight and bearings are well supported. There is interference with the filament feed tube and lid casing (you can hear it rubbing on the inside of the unit) when it's printing, but I have yet to see any substantial impact on the quality of the prints. It's the restrictive software and being locked out of the firmware that grinds my gears.

Anyway, I've had a moan in the other thread, so feel free to chip in there if you want to vent more

I agree with you that their product lineup is not very well considered and could do with some refinement.

edit :: I was obviously looking with my ears - there is a *z-stepper brace* in the form of a steel bracket!

Well, it was a pleasure to contribute! Thank you for your dedication and effort - I ran your 0.9.0 exe to encrypt/decrypt 3w files where ThreeDubber kept falling over. Looks like a very cool program, so I will be dead chuffed if I can slice in Cura and print directly with the miniMover.

Have a read of your PM's - I sent you some more info, which may/may not be of interest. I might need to pick your brains, but doubt I'll have much spare time over the next couple of weeks for much further progress...

Speak soon

ARWS

Ok, I'm stubbing in what I know about the V2 protocol into miniMover. 

I already decoded the print file routine for a serial connection and have it working up to the point where the 1.1 Plus locks up (probably a hardware issue). 

I see the code that goes out and queries XYZ to see if the filament is valid, however all that seems to do is set a flag when requesting to start a print, there does not seem to be a handshake between the website and filament eeprom, at least that I can find.  Again without a working machine it is hard to be certain of this. 

The upshot is that we can probably send a print to a 1.x machine without bugging xyz.  that won't let you print with any filament, there is still a filament check in the firmware, but it will remove the need for any network access when printing.

Anyway I'm going to finish decoding the wifi print protocol and look into the firmware upgrade protocol.  And possibly try to snag an image from the camera as well.

I still won't officially support 1.x machines after that, but I will be much closer to it.  I may be able to send someone some test code to verify that  I'm going in the right direction, but chances are I will still need to get my hands on at least one fully functional 1.x machine to get this on line.  Still this potentially will reduce the timeframe needed to get it working by a lot.

I have been playing with miniMover 0.9.5 since yesterday. Everything works much better than 0.9.0, almost all function work as expected, it is much much much better than xyzware in many way.

Here are some small function request, hopefully they are not too difficult to implement.
1. The target and printer is set to auto by default, and they practically always detect my miniMaker correctly. Can you make the option automatically scroll to detected target and printer com port? It is not important at all but can make more sense. Also is it possible add a button to connect/disconnect the printer or reset the printer? I sometimes fund the app will stop working because printer is doing something else unsuccessfully (all fuction will return fail but the main UI is still response). I have to reboot the printer and restart the apps and everything will work again, it will be nice if we can recovery this by push a button.

2. z-offset, is is possible to convert the number to mm so that it is easy to understand. It is also very helpful to display tips about increase z-offset will move nozzle higher or lower so that it is easier for newbie to find out how to adjust the z-offset.

3. When load/unload filament, there is long time progress bar just hanging there and text on progress bar saying loading or unloading, I know the printer is heating up nozzle, can you change the text to heating up nozzle and include some text saying it is going to take x minutes or so? It will be great if you can display current nozzle temperature/target nozzle temperature if possible.

4. when unload filament, there is time of waiting between filament extracted and step motor pull the filament, I think it is waiting for hotend to cool down, it will be nice if there are some text to inform people so and it will be best if you can display current nozzle temperature/target nozzle temperature here.

I know these are all non-essential function, but it do improve user experience a lot, especially for people don't know what's going on and what to expect, some may think it freezes or not functional properly.

Cheers,

I don't know if you already doing this, I found the printer lockup often happens when I try to make printer do something while previous task is not finished or unsuccessful. Is it possible to check printer status (query=j) before send any action command to make sure printer is idle or previous action is _DONE? If not, either msgbox printer busy or advice reboot printer is printer not response in 5 minutes or so.

When I load/unload filament from Jr. console, it shows current hotend temperature, but I'm not sure how to load/unload filament with miniMaker without miniMover. Does xyzware have load/unload filament somewhere? does it show hotend temperature? You may not be able to do query=a, but may be able to do query=t

Cheers,

You have to click the little square box in the lower right corner of XYZWare to bring up the controls to unload the filament on the miniMaker.

I'm floundering a bit so I thought I would write up another todo list.

- Need to close wifi connection after every command.  That means I need to track the state of the connection independant of if it is open or not (keep track of failures), and retain enough that a 'reopen' command could be executed at any time.  This may help the mini w work better, however I'm not holding my breath.  It is needed to make the 1.1 Plus work over wifi.

- Need to properly test my stubbed in 1.1 Plus code.  This includes coming up with a small demo that can print a machine status and dump a test file to a printer so that someone with a working 1.1 can let me know how it goes.  Chances are it will just lock up, but who knows.

- Need to at least integrate enough of the v2 protocol so I can auto detect the machine model when converting files.  I think that is a safe thing to do.  Sending a file to be printed over the v2 protocol is more tricky.

- Need to finish splitting up the file enc/dec and send routines into sub tasks so they don't lock up the process.  That is the last step to getting the UI to become free of any lockups.  And it is needed so I can drive a progress bar while uploading a file to the printer (and while converting large files).  This is tedious, but not difficult.

- Need to improve the status shown on the UI.  Both by filling in more details, and working out how to query status (bed temp,etc) while in the middle of executing another command.  This is probably going to require another rethink of how I handle the logic.  In XYZWare they run two threads, one sends out data and the other recieves responses.  That way the sending thread can just spin while waiting for a response. This is not a very good design, it breaks up the logic too much however something similar is probably where I will end up eventually.

- Need to stub in code to download firmware from xyz website.  I'm reluctant to go down that road since there is a high chance of me bricking someones printer when upgrading or downgrading firmware, but still...

- Need to enforce a 3 second delay between commands when communicating to a mini w machine.

- Need to test and more test and release a 0.96 version.  There are a few nice improvements since the v0.95 version