best g-code printer?

[alaris2 1]

so I've always used pronterface for this. it works. it's a bit slow and bloaty and probably written in python or something, but it gets the job done with only occasional blobbing.

now I've moved my UM to the garage and decided to run it from a small automotive PC. ulticontroller is out of the question since it has no ethernet, but these small PC's don't have as much grunt.

it loads and runs pronterface, but if I load some g-code it just barfs and hangs for hours. it's clearly not going to be suited to the task.

has anyone any experience (good or bad) with other g-code printers - anything lightweight and fast out there suited to small PC's (or even a raspberry pi for example)?

[Daid 306]

The main issue you have with pronterface is that it loads all the GCode in memory, that's most likely your culprit. As other then that the GCode sender of Pronterface is as good as you can have it. (Only SD card will prevent blobbing)

[fluxline 0]

I'm using an old (6 years ?) Samsung Q1, with less than a gig of memory, wirelessly connected to a NAS that holds the gcode files generated on the workstation . Currently I run pronterface supplied with cura on both linux and xp with it.

Things that help are making sure the models are cleaned with meshlab; for more complicated models, minimizing the client once the print starts solves any other slowdown problems. You might get some sputtering if you bring up the UI again to adjust temp or anything else, but usually not a problem. Here's hoping that a future version of cura will have buttons a little bigger for my fingers to use with the touch screen. Having the touchscreen there really makes bed levelling and such easier.

[alaris2 1]

yes, i think loading it all in memory is the problem. I also noticed when printing something much smaller that it stopped and started a lot during printing. this might work better if i minimize it - i'll try that next time, thanks fluxline.

what did you mean by 'cleaned with meshlab' incidentally? is there a magic sequence of buttons i should press there?

[fluxline 0]

Meshlab http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/ is a tool for editing 3D meshes. When you import an stl into a project, it will cleanup duplicated vertices as a default. There are some other filters you can use to remove duplicated faces, zero area faces, and other cleanup scripts. You can also use netfabb http://cloud.netfabb.com/, which I find easier with things like reversed normals. Make a search on youtube and google for a few tutorials about what might help a particular model your working with.

[greenarrow 0]

Shameless self-promotion:

http://matterq.org

Or if you just want a simple command line program use austerus-send (use internally by matterQ):

https://github.com/greenarrow/austerusG

(probably Linux only)

[alaris2 1]

!^%$"^$£.

that's exactly what I wanted. but couldn't find. I hope it helps someone else tho.

I ended up buying an ulticontroller, which is expensive and doesn't really do what I want.

thanks greenarrow.

[gigaworks 0]

Cool project greenarrow! This is the first time I've heard of it but it looks very promising!