utopiah

See also i.e notes on 1.5 update which says "Change material while print is paused. It is now possible to pause the print and change the material spool in the paused state."

Hi there, apologies for pulling this post from its gave but "Change material while print is paused. It is now possible to pause the print and change the material spool in the paused state." is from 1.5 release notes from June 2022. What has then be introduced and how can it be used?

Yes... but to play devil's advocate (again, I do want this and more on the UM2+C) Cura and the printer are two different things. Cura is the slicing software. It can be used with the UM2+C or any other printer. Thus there are functionalities that are present that aren't supported by all printers, even the ones sold by Ultimaker who does both software and hardware. So it's a business decision from Ultimaker. They decided that for the market segment, it was fine using a simpler hardware controller with a simpler firmware despite the loss of functionality. Disappointing to me, and to you, but that can still be considered out of specifications. Anyway it clearly isn't their focus for now, even though, yes indeed it could be done.

@Nico04 you can look at my post history but a word of advice here, don't swim against the current. I asked numerous time and people have basically told me, I'm wrong, this model of printer is not for tinkering. Of course I encourage you to voice your needs but don't get disappointed if sadly you don't get the response you are hoping for. I sincerely wish you will get better answers than I did so if you do (fingers crossed) please do keep me posted!

Oof... back from the grave and sadly for a bad news : no news. Honestly at that point when people ask about the UM2+Connect I suggest it as a not fuss plug&play 3D printer. If they want to actually tinker, go the Pruza way. I gave up on this. Still happily print with it but I just don't tinker with the device itself.

No worries it happens. Take care @kupfeli and welcome to the forum. PS: yes it's great hardware leading to top quality prints.

@kupfeli I'm genuinely confused here. Are you suggesting ssh should instead be disabled on other models? PS: I would consider unearthing a 5 months old topic bad etiquette if it's not actually helpful.

Yes that's also my understanding but the pause button on the screen does somehow affect the machine so somehow it must relay the request to the motors..?

I understand, a delicate balance indeed. I'll try to attend tomorrow. From the link you shared I was surprise to see in firmware 1.5 "New feature: Change material while print is paused. It is now possible to pause the print and to swap out a material"as this seems to be exactly what would be needed in this specific case. Is it a different mechanism than Gcode? PS: I wish I could subscribe to update to https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017358580-Ultimaker-2-Connect-firmware-release-notes

Thanks @CarloK, exciting to hear that this will gradually come. Is the roadmap public and if not is there a way to get notifications when new feature on a specific model, here the UM2+C, gets integrated?

Unfortunately it is different and so far, despite being newer, has less features.

Thanks @Smithy for the confirmation, this is indeed what I meant by my edit. I believe it's important for everybody interested by that model to be aware of at the name "Connect" my lead to think otherwise. PS: what's "DF" in this context?

Thanks I haven't verified but and the latest August reply "Pause at height is currently not supported by the firmware of Ultimaker 2+ Connect." makes me believe this isn't an option here. Have you tried it on this model?

Sending prints via LAN even while Internet connection is down? But I imagine that's specific to the UM2+ Connect as others can probably send gcode via e.g ssh.

I specified a correct layer (e.g layer 8 of a 10 layers print) using Cura 4.11.0 on an up to date UM2+ Connect. The print finished without error but there was no pause or prompt to change the filament. I verified by sitting in front of the printer for a smaller print. I diff the the generate GCODE with and without the plugin and get : M600 E30.00 L300.00 X0.00 Y0.00 ; Generated by FilamentChange plugin which seems correct. Does the UM2+ Connect firmware support the M600 instruction? If not (which based on previous discussions here wouldn't be surprising) is there a practical alternative to do so using less specific instructions?

Excellent way to summarize it. Being locked out of the device is no problem for beginners but for expert or tinkerers it's basically feels like the wrong purchase, despite the quality of the prints.

Yes, I trusted UM as a brand as I didn't have the knowledge sufficient to know if a board was new or not. I expected the model to be as tinkerable as the others because it was the trend. I took a risk because it was the new model and there was no feedback yet. I misunderstood UM as a company and clearly I was not the only one as OP is much more knowledgeable than I am.

@ZD3D 100% with you there. Unfortunately the only thing I can do is share my shock, again It is the 1st UM I buy but might very well be the last. I bought mine, as explained in that old thread because I wanted to support development (so not buying a "copy-cat" with a thin layer of dev). I also bought UM because I am not a 3D printing expert so as others have suggested in this thread, I did want the "turn key" solution or as you said, critically, the magical button but NOT as the cost of being able to tinker! So ... I'm very sorry you had to go through this but you are not alone in being deeply disappointed.

That’s indeed what I’d do but the “Connect” in the brand name led me to think integration would be flawless, at least for such basic use case. Sure we can find independent systems to monitor but that is far from ideal. Thanks still for sharing an example.

I’m using WebThings.io for my IoT gateway and would also like to integrate it, even if just to know the current printing status and thus being able to integrate with my other Things with rules. Unfortunately I gave up since last Winter due to the lack of UM update on the topic. Quite disappointed for this price point.

Well it took me a week to figure it out, or rather to understand what was already said : I tried again the same print but I changed back the quality (layer height) from 0.2mm to 0.1mm. Obviously it takes a lot longer but... the "weird" sound is gone. I imagine the zigzag that the slicer made was correct yet problematic for my context.

Thank you but even if it's not official your answers do help me get a better understanding of the situation. I don't want to sound negative so I'm truly grateful for your clarifications, even though they are not going in the direction I hoped for. I still "argue" here as others, in an official manner or not, might jump in and also because it helps me to clarify what I actually need and, possibly, how. Regarding DF replacement, yes I understand it's a cloud solution but I also noticed https://github.com/Ultimaker/cloudrun-action and a reference to startdust-web so I imagine there could be some code for that also. In fact I have another device, the reMarkable 1 and 2 (writable e-ink devices) running on Linux where the exact same situation happened. Namely that the devices by default connect to the manufacturer cloud instance hosted on Google Cloud. Because, for moral and privacy-focused reason I try whenever possible to avoid Google based products, I relied instead on a community created alternative (named https://github.com/ddvk/rmfakecloud) and my own scripts to have a local solution. Consequently I'm wondering how a similar result could be achieved. Maybe an alternative path would be to develop a community plugin for the marketplace. I imagine this gives me a way to program Cura which itself send command to DF then to the printer? In the end I don't care for ssh per se (even though I do like to be able to look at the "guts" of my hardware, live) but I'm still look for a programmatic way to control the printer.

Yes the new model has more and is overall better. I'm not questioning that and to be honest I don't even have the expertise to challenge that. What I'm saying though is that if an older model has a feature, e.g. connecting to ssh and being able to execute some Gcode, but the newer model does not but theoretically could (in fact it does in some way otherwise DF wouldn't be able to send those commands, albeit by another protocol than ssh) it is a software regression. What was possible before is not anymore. Now if the target group changed from tinkerers and makers to "business customers" and that you are convinced according to your discussions with them that would prefer not to have the option to not rely on the cloud, that's a perfectly fine decision. It does show though that I personally misunderstood what Ultimaker was as a company. I thought it did provide some of the best in terms of quality, "a uniform stable system" (which again I truly appreciate, DF worked like a charm) but also a way for tinkerers to build something new on their own. I didn't go in depth through the specs of the UM2+C and assume the DF cloud hosted on Google (according to some Github repositories) was optional. Now the few ideas I had in mind : direct printing from VR IoT integration with WebOfThings AR preview on plate seem to have the same degree of complexity that if I did buy in a closed system that I'd then have to reverse engineer. Are there then any solution here to : host my own DF instance that the printer would then receive command from? rewrite the firmware (didn't see it on Github) to have both the official DF and mine to get commands from? rewrite a firmware to enable ssh again? any other solution to both get info (e.g. printing status, queue) and send Gcode remotely? Any practical solution or clarification on what future related features planned would be greatly appreciated. PS: being a prototypist I'm all too aware that being a "professional tinkerer" (literally how I pay my bills) might not be a target group but I still have to find ways to go beyond what the initial creators of any product have intended. Always an uncomfortable position but hopefully also always interesting!

Thanks then I'll have to dig deeper. If the newer model can do less than the previous one it appears like a regression, hence my confusion. Assuming it's a strategical decision I'd be interested in knowing the logic behind it. Naive question then, can I at least using Cura/CuraEngine connect over the network directly (Ethernet or WiFi, no console cable) to send G-code or am I stuck with Digital Factory? What if it is inaccessible for any reason (e.g my Internet connection is down), would I be stuck having to use a USB stick despite the printer being on the same network?

Pragmatically speaking you are probably right. The UM2+C probably covers or should cover with firmware updates all I might need. Yet, I specifically bought an Ultimaker rather than e.g. a Flashforge because of the company commitment to open source. Now if I the 1st thing I want to do, beside printing directly in the workflow managed by the manufacturer, is not supported, that's perfectly fine. The problem is if that is impossible to change without e.g. reverse engineering the device and some proprietary protocol. If my crazy ideas make no sense or would take me years to implement, that's on me. If the ecosystem though does not afford tinkering then, not only did I not buy the right printer but worst than that I didn't buy into the right ecosystem. If that's the case then I'll see if there i a way to backtrack my purchase. It would be a shame as indeed the result, in terms of print quality and even on-boarding, is quite impressive. That being said if my freedom to tinker is limited because the business model starts to focus efforts and create artificial limitations for an audience that wants to click&print then I made the wrong choice.