Newbie issue

[heffneil 0]

Hey guys I am BRAND new to this so be gentle.  I have an A8 Anet Printer.  I am using Ultimaker Cura - latest version 3.4 I think.  I have it running on a laptop plugged in to the wall and no power settings set to make it go to sleep.  I seem to have an issue where the printer - on large prints - says "Click to Resume".  I am not clear why this is happening or how to resolve it. I have the printer in the garage so its quite a schlep when it freezes up and I have to go out there.  Also I have to deal with the blob of filament that melts where it is stuck.  It is quite a problem.  Any thoughts or ideas how to resolve this?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Smithy 1,144]

Normally the generated GCode from Cura is saved as file to an USB stick or SD card and you plug the card in the printer. If A8 (I don't know it how the A8 is working) is network enabled, then the file is sent to the printer and stored locally. So there is no need to have Cura running during the print, you just prepare the GCode and then send it to the printer.

[heffneil 0]

I use Cura to monitor the printer.  Shows how far along the print is and estimated time to complete.  I am probably going to setup Octoprint but this is very odd that its stopping and looking to get a button pressed.  Is there a limit on the amount of memory the printer can help if I am loading the data from the PC?  I couldn't get it to work from the SD card - probably the SD card that came with it is bad....

[gr5 2,178]

When printing through USB the printer can only store a few lines of gcode at a time.  The arduino on these printers (I'm pretty sure the A8 has an arduino) stores very little.

 

There is a pause gcode.  M something.  You could search to see if there are any "M" codes in your gcode file - there shouldn't be any (most likely) after the first 10 or so layers.

 

If the SD card is unreliable then the USB is also likely to be unreliable.  They both send signals through the same cable to the arduino and this data path is the most common source of errors.  Or you could try blowing compressed air into the slot for the SD card as it can get a single hair in there and then have intermittent (and sometimes complete) reading errors.

[RoboDLC 1]

I have seen "Waiting for user input" on my printer when going through USB to my printer with 3.4.1.  I never saw that before.  In my case it seems to be caused when I preheat the bed and the nozzle via the "monitor" screen in CURA before I start the print job.

Do you use the preheat buttons as well?

 

Oh and.

Setting up Octoprint is stupid simple and cheap.  I have a ancient Raspberry Pi model B (not 3B, B) with a $10 USB WiFi dongle and a class 4 8GB SD card on my Anet A8.  I do not know how I survived without Octoprint!  I even run a USB camera on it with no problems at all.  You can get a RPi 3B+, USB cable and power supply off Amazon for about $43, another few bucks for an 8GB SD card.   Any RPi board will work but I think that the Pi Zero is a bit more of a hassle because of its limited I/O.  Google Octoprint to find the image to put on the SD card and follow their instructions to set it all up.  It takes about 10 minutes (after you dump the image to the SD card.)