CuraEngine slicing for Ultimaker S5

[Capsaicin 1]

Hello guys,

 

I'm working on a project where we want to do automated slicing via command line with an Ultimaker S5.

As we are using an Ultimaker we decided to use CuraEngine for slicing.

 

I managed to get some basic slicing running, using the ultimaker_s5.def.json configuration file as well as the s5 extruder definitions.

When I try to print the created gcode (a simple calibration cube in this case), the S5 greys out the file and displays "Something is wrong with this file".

-> I will attach the not woking gcode (output.gcode) to this post, as well as the gcode I get out of Cura GUI (working_GUI.gcode).

 

Does anyone know what to do to get printable gcode for the S5 out of CuraEngine?

 

Any help would be VERY much appreciated!

 

 

output.gcode

working_GUI.gcode

[nallath 1,124]

The extruder name in the header is not set

;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.0.NOZZLE.NAME:unknown

 

[Capsaicin 1]

@nallath I just tried it, but the S5 stillt says "Something is wrong with this file".

 

I'll attach the new gcode with set extruder name...

 

Any other ideas what the issue could be?

output_new.gcode

[Capsaicin 1]

Okay, I did a bit of testing and found out, that the issue is that the print time and both extruder trains have to be included.

 

The Cura GUI includes

Quote

;PRINT.TIME:2650

;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.0.INITIAL_TEMPERATURE:215
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.0.MATERIAL.VOLUME_USED:4355
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.0.MATERIAL.GUID:03f24266-0291-43c2-a6da-5211892a2699
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.0.NOZZLE.DIAMETER:0.4
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.0.NOZZLE.NAME:AA 0.4
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.1.INITIAL_TEMPERATURE:100
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.1.MATERIAL.VOLUME_USED:764
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.1.MATERIAL.GUID:fe15ed8a-33c3-4f57-a2a7-b4b78a38c3cb
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.1.NOZZLE.DIAMETER:0.4
;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.1.NOZZLE.NAME:BB 0.4

As soon as i insert these line into the header of the gcode created by CuraEngine the S5 accepts the file.

 

So this raises two questions:

1. How do I set BOTH Extruder Trains in CuraEngine (I don't really understand which setting has to be set in which xxx.def.json to configure it properly)
2. How do I include the print time in CuraEngine?

 

Thanks for any help in advance!

Edited December 19, 2018 by Capsaicin

[nallath 1,124]

You don't have to set both extruders. This is only required if the print actually needs both extruders.
The print time is a required field, so that's probably the culprit.

 

Right now, the engine isn't really designed to be run as a stand alone. Quite a bit of the business logic is still within the frontend. We're looking to change that, but it will probably take quite some time to do that.

[Capsaicin 1]

Just now, nallath said:

You don't have to set both extruders. This is only required if the print actually needs both extruders.
The print time is a required field, so that's probably the culprit.

 

Right now, the engine isn't really designed to be run as a stand alone. Quite a bit of the business logic is still within the frontend. We're looking to change that, but it will probably take quite some time to do that.

Is the print time used for any other purpose than visualization and processing of used material? If not it could be just inserted afterwards with some random value...

[nallath 1,124]

You could put a random number there, but the display & time prediction will go haywire if you do.

[burtoogle 516]

The engine does compute a print time so it could insert a value into the gcode without the help of the front end.

[Capsaicin 1]

4 hours ago, smartavionics said:

The engine does compute a print time so it could insert a value into the gcode without the help of the front end.

 

I just realized this too, thank you!

[tkamsker 1]

On 12/18/2018 at 4:19 PM, nallath said:

The extruder name in the header is not set

;EXTRUDER_TRAIN.0.NOZZLE.NAME:unknown

 

hi question where do i find how to set the Name (and GUID etc ? ) do i need to go in the c code ? or is there somewhere an wiki ? or generated docu ? 

 

[modernonline 0]

Hey, sorry to bring this back but I'm facing exactly the same issue with an _S3. What was the final workaround?

 

In my case, what's missing:

material GUID

printing time

filament amount

 

My 'dirty' thought was to save terminal output to a .txt, take the lines I need and extract values through some shell or python, and then append to the gcode?

[Capsaicin 1]

Hi @modernonline and @tkamsker 

 

it has been a while since I was working on this and I cannot check that code anymore as I am not working on this site anymore.

As far as I remember, some things (maybe also the GUID of the material etc.) can be set in the configuration/definition files. I remember that I had to do some deep digging there to get this running for my use case, as all the files inherit from each other and some things have to be set in the root definition files and work only there.

 

@modernonline I think your proposed solution was exactly what I did back then. Do the slicing, take output and modify the gcode with it.

 

Hope this provides at least a little help, I remember that working with this was a real hassle because nothing was documented and it was a lot of trial and error...

[modernonline 0]

@Capsaicin there is some documentation albeit scarce. People who get what to do don't write guides and for Cura the engine is merely a debug tool. Anyways, I'm doing all this for an art installation and plan to do some guides once everything's done. I'm actually doing the automated slicing + print job submission via API. Double trouble 🙂

 

Anyways not much has changed and appending gcode is still the best approach it seems.

Edited June 10, 2020 by modernonline

[Tka 0]

Modernonline so we do similar things we had to rewrite slicing so inyour case cura is running now in several docker images to be called by our cloud service ,..

[nallath 1,124]

On 6/10/2020 at 8:32 PM, Tka said:

Modernonline so we do similar things we had to rewrite slicing so inyour case cura is running now in several docker images to be called by our cloud service ,..

Cool, did you also release the source code?