Pronterface/Printer Chopping

Scroll to the ***'s for the quick answer.

This has probably been posted else where, and I failed to see it, but I figured I would start posting fixes for the stock software since it seems I am going to be sticking with it for a while and people who are like me and are new to 3d printing who may stick with the stock software. And because people seem to use this site fairly frequently, it might save a few people the embarrassing moment of realizing what the fix was.

So, I was having some serious issues with Pronterface recently.

I've been working on some larger prints about 5x5x4 inches. I was getting some serious choppiness out of my printer. So, last week I abandoned the ol' pile of poop laptop and opted for an Intellistation Z Pro. I figured going from single core to dual dual-cores and 8 gb memory would knock that problem right out of the park.

I was wrong.

The prints would start fine, however about 7 layers in it would go back to the same chopping. Stopping constantly and pausing a few milliseconds, taking about 4 steps each time. This increased the total print time on a few prints to almost 3 fold, and the results looked craptacular in some situations.

I tried changing the Priority in Windows Task Manager, that helped a bit, but not as much as I would hope. It solved mid-size prints from chopping as much.

I Process killed everything not required for the printer to work, nothing.

I finally figured out what my problem was.

*** The button called "Mini-mode". That's it. Clicking "Mini-mode" just does a Restore Down to the window from what I can see. Presto. The difference is almost difficult to compare to night and day, more like day and deep space.

I'm assuming the updating of the pathing window is what is causing that chopping. But leaving the Window full and then minimizing to the task bar STILL gave this problem (likely because of this being Win 7 and updating in the task bar).

On smaller prints it was not an issue to leave the full window open, but if you experience choppiness with Pronterface with larger prints, or maybe even in general with an older machine, click the Minimode button and I bet you will see it decrease substantially if not completely disappear. It hasn't chopped once since, even with me Skeining, surfing, and torrenting simultaneously.

I'll take some videos and post them to the tubes soon to show exactly what it is I am talking about.

A better answer is probably to go to software that is just better in general, as Ian and Lawsy have spent a lot of time posting how to do that.