I recently purchased an ultimaker kit, I have assembled it and was most impressed with the quality of the kit and how everything went together.
Once the unit was assembled I installed the software: the ReplicatorG 035 build, drivers installed Manually and connected OK.
I had to update the firmware to the Marlin build, this went fine. This is when the following problems started:
1. Attempted to do the motion test as per the Guide: There was no control from the control panel, none of the manual motion controls worked.
2. During several attempts the ReplicatorG would just lock up, and never recover.
3. I then Researched the forums and troubleshooting guides. In the end I wanted to test if it was a problem with ReplicatorG so I installed Cura (3)
4. Cura installed and started, it prompted me for another firmware update (again Marlin) and this completed without any problems.
5. When it started the first time wizard, I centered the print head as instructed and then nothing happened after that.
6. The terminal came up and it keeps giving the temperature of the head as 376 degrees, even though it is still at room temp. Closer inspection of the terminal output shows the following output: Error: MAXTEMP, and something about print-head being deactivated, and having to send m99 command to reset etc??
7. I again went back to the forum and found many people have had the same problem but there was no clear answer or solution, I was left with the opinion that either the thermister was faulty or that the Marlin build has the wrong values for the thermistor properties (scale factors) / type and therefore gets the wrong value.
8. I have checked all the wiring and conductivity with a multimeter, I even swapped out the leads from the print head circuit board to the Ultimaker board to make sure it wasn’t that. Nothing has changed (same 376 degrees reading).
9. To date the printhead has never actually heated up.
10. To check if this was a problem with thermistor in firmware I wanted to check what the error messages if any came up on replicatorG.
11. I tried to connect with replicatorG and it won’t now connect, I tried to redo the firmware update through replicatorG and it starts and then terminates with the message that firmware update was unsuccessful, I have tried this numerous times (I even read that you have to let replicator start, and afterwards then connect the ultimaker USB, I have tried all suggestions from the forum, and I cannot get ReplicatorG to update the firmware and connect anymore.
12. I also purchased the Netfab license but as I found out, the Ultimaker version doesn’t actually provide any USB control.
13. My machine is Win7 64bit, to make sure this wasn’t a 64 bit Vs 32 bit problem (ie Java etc) I have also performed the above on a Win7 32 bit laptop and had the same results.
Could anyone advise on what may work?