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Ulticontroller manual


alaris2

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Posted · Ulticontroller manual

I'm sure I remember seeing a manual for ulticontroller somewhere. a pdf showing where everything was in the menus. perhaps it even went as far as to tell me whether i need to fiddle with any of the numbers in the myriad of submenus or not.

but now i can't find it, and a search of the forum didn't find it :(

is the '100%' at the bottom left the speed? or the flow?

I can't find anything in the wiki either :( this isn't a good first user experience! :(

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    Bottom left is speed, Bottom right is percentage of the SDcard file completed. Which setting are you looking for? Most stuff for preparation can be found in the prepare section (move axis contains extrude to prime your print head) and most tuning options are in the Control/Tune section (flow rate, temp, fan control, etc). If your slicing settings are good, you shouldn't need to touch these very often...

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    thanks Sander - altho it only has one button, there are lots of questions about it. I've found some answers by trial and error and thanks to MSUrunner.

    some of the questions I don't think I've yet to find an answer for (if anyone feels like chiming in)

    1) so if you set the speed to 150%, presumably that sends some g-code? I didn't realise there was one that affected speed, i thought we decided that at slice-time. so if it's running 150% does that also affect the minimum layer time? (ie. 10 second min layer is now 6.6 second?) or is it only affecting perimeters, or only fill, or some combination? what exactly is 'speed' is the question I guess..

    2) on several occasions it heats up the nozzle, goes down to the bed. sits there burning a hole in my tape because the screen says 'sleep'. it appears to have died. if I reboot, sometimes it decides to work again, so I guess the file isn't corrupt.

    3) no long filenames? bummer, I can't work out which file I'm printing.. what about file extensions? does it care what extension is used? (I use .gcode at present)

    4) I found a way to stop the print. except it does exactly that. nozzle stays where it is, at full temperature spewing out plastic. can a print be resumed? if not, isn't 'stop' a bit like saying "and switch the hotend off please!" maybe even "move it out the way at the same time"

    5) all that stuff in the prepare and menu - I can see extrude might be useful as a tool, and flow rate and temp are useful tools too - the other things look more like settings that belong in the slicer? so I guess I don't touch them or something bad happens :)

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    1) No, it does not really send a GCode. But it has the same effect as sending M220 Sxxx. Yes, it effects the minimal layer time. And it effects everything.

    2) "Sleep..." indicates an error. It's a bit of a bug, as it should say "ERROR: TEMPERATURE". Most likely the thermocouple connection is a bit bad which is causing this during certain movements.

    3) Long filenames are currently only supported in the unstable development version of Marlin.

    4) The issue here is that we don't know why you pressed stop. You could be pressing stop because the hotend dug itself into the print, at which point you DON'T want it to move. You could also have pressed stop because the print failed, and you want to restart it. Cooling off the nozzle would also be bad then.

    5) Yes, the menus are a bit overkill at the moment. They where designed when a lot of settings where not dialed in correctly yet. Now they are and you no longer would need those menus.

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    thanks Daid,

    the error temperature one I find odd. I have never once experienced any fault with the thermocouple connection using the PC as host. the second print (and third) failed with this error as soon as I connected the ulticontroller. nothing more elaborate than a power reset and it printed fine the next time.

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    If anyone has any more questions about the UltiController and the interface, you should find (most of) your answers here!

    http://wiki.ultimaker.com/UltiController

    Enjoy!

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    Editor's note for ya:

    "Automatically, if you decrease temperature you have to decrease the temperature as well."

    I would think you meant something along the lines of:

    "Alternatively, if you decrease temperature you have to decrease the speed as well."

    Quick question for you. In the motion control menu, you have the ability to alter the jerk settings. Is that temporarily stored or is that flashed to the firmware? Meaning, if it's altered once, is it held for the current print, the time the printer is turned on, or until altered again?

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual
    Quick question for you. In the motion control menu, you have the ability to alter the jerk settings. Is that temporarily stored or is that flashed to the firmware? Meaning, if it's altered once, is it held for the current print, the time the printer is turned on, or until altered again?

    It's only stored if you use the "store" option. However, I advice against adjusting those, as while going trough the code I noticed a few problems in the LCD implementation there. So not all setting might adjust properly or are used, I know 1 of them stores the setting wrong, and another only works after resetting the machine.

    I recommend you only play with the Vmax, especially for the Z this could improve prints and print speed. The Z can move quite a bit faster then the current limit.

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    So in other words, play around with it on a test print, write down your settings, input them in the Marlin builder, then reflash the firmware?

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    No, adjust them, store them, reset the machine, check if they have been properly applied.

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual
    Editor's note for ya:

    "Automatically, if you decrease temperature you have to decrease the temperature as well."

    I would think you meant something along the lines of:

    "Alternatively, if you decrease temperature you have to decrease the speed as well."

    Thanks!

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    awesome, thanks Sander!

    Daid> is the UltiController dual extrusion and heated bed ready or does it need upgrading?

    cheers, nik

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual
    awesome, thanks Sander!

    Daid> is the UltiController dual extrusion and heated bed ready or does it need upgrading?

    cheers, nik

    Yes and no. You'll need to compile a new firmware for dual extrusion and/or a heated bed. But then it will show up and you can set the temperatures and see the temperatures.

    However, if you have both dual extrusion and a heated bed, it will not show all 3 temperatures on the main screen. I'm working on this, and in my development version is does show 3 temperatures (sacrificing the Z height for the 3th temperature)

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    Posted · Ulticontroller manual

    I've noticed what I think are a couple of Ulticontroller bugs. I might as well bring them up here:

    1. Sometimes when scrolling past the end of the file names in the file menu, all the file names disappear from the listing and it's impossible to select a gcode file. Refresh doesn't work. The only way to get the file names back is to remove and replace the SD card.

    2, Sometimes (often/usually) after manipulating the machine via the Ulticontroller menus and knob (usually Z-axis height adjustment to clean the nozzle or do a test extrusion using Prepare >> Axes >> Extrude) a problem arises after a gcode file is selected for printing. As the stage seeks home in Z (stage rises), it doesn't move smoothly. The Z-stepper motor starts and stops periodically all the way home. The only way to stop the stuttering is to power down the Ultimaker and start over. :(

    Obviously, I find #2 to be the bigger PITA!

    Has anyone else seen these problems?

    Thanks,

    -Cal

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