I really want to use Cura. But cant get it to connect to my Replicator 2

[antonchigurh 0]

Hello everyone. I am having an issue that I have googled about and found other people having, but have yet to find a definitive answer. I downloaded Cura because I was told it worked better than RepG. And after looking at it, it seems to be much better. But when I try to print, it will not connect to my clone of a Replicator 2. I am on a mac. Sometimes it can't find the correct boudrate and if I set it to 25000 it trys to connect but then repeadedly says M105 and disconnects. Could someone please help me, I really want to use Cura!!

 

[gr5 2,094]

Not too many people with replicators on this forum .

Well I seem to remember that the rep has it's own compressed gcode format. I think you need to compress the gcode that comes out of cura to the compressed format (is the compressed format called x3g). There are some free compressors out there to compress to x3g.

Maybe this has nothing to do with your problems - I don't know.

I would ask google. Or ask around to other people who got this working. Maybe ask in a makerbot forum? I hear they moderate their forums heavily and might block things like this but it seems like using open source cura should be okay with them.

[antonchigurh 0]

Cura has a profile for The Makerbot Replicator and allows you to chose between 3 types of 'Gcode flavors' :

RepRap, UltiGcode, and Makerbot. Lol.. Upon posting this reply and looking at the settings for a referance, I see now that it says "requires MakerWare to generate to X3G"

So.. Thanks for inadvertantly helping me out. It's a bummer that I can't use Cura on its own, it is a far smoother program than the very slow ReplicatorG.

 

[Daid 304]

Cura has a profile for The Makerbot Replicator and allows you to chose between 3 types of 'Gcode flavors' :

RepRap, UltiGcode, and Makerbot. Lol.. Upon posting this reply and looking at the settings for a referance, I see now that it says "requires MakerWare to generate to X3G"

So.. Thanks for inadvertantly helping me out. It's a bummer that I can't use Cura on its own, it is a far smoother program than the very slow ReplicatorG.

 

The problem here is that there are no specs released for the X3G format from MakerBot, nor their communication protocol. I think there are firmwares out there that accept the GCode transfer protocol that we are using, but then you'll have to experiment with firmwares.

 

[peteruithoven 4]

@ Daid,

Maybe some of these links are useful, if someone wants to implement support in Cura

http://www.doodle3d.com/help/wiki/makerbot

 

[irongland 1]

Check out that link peteruithoven posted! There is a link to a gcode to x3g file written by whpthomas (one of the prominent makerbot community members) in there: https://github.com/whpthomas/GPX

Sounds like that would be a solution for Anton

 

[grigori-chulaki 0]

Hello everyone!

I'm in the same boat as Anton, though hopefully he or someone has gotten further than myself. There are no instructions and I don't know if I can run this script on OS X, but I'm giving it a try. Compiling is no problem, but upon running the script, I'm definitely in a bind. As you can see, I'm not good at this, but I'm at a loss with the limited scope I have.

Please help. I'm abysmally tired of makerware's remedial ways. Were I to be printing the same x3g file day in, day out ..there'd be no problem. However, we're making constant adjustments and new designs, and are in need of a smoother pipeline (CURA!!!) for this 3D printing endeavor to be profitable, which will allow us the resources and inspiration to branch out to reprap and/or UM. This is not to say that we're not enthused. If anyone running OSX(or otherwise) has any insight to offer, I'll be glad to share the progress.

 

Grigoris-MacBook-Pro:~ grigorichulaki$ gpx -c r2 taperedtube3.gcode taperedtube3.x3g

-bash: gpx: command not found

Grigoris-MacBook-Pro:~ grigorichulaki$ cd downloadsgpx-2

-bash: cd: downloadsgpx-2: No such file or directory

Grigoris-MacBook-Pro:~ grigorichulaki$ cd downloads/gpx-2

Grigoris-MacBook-Pro:gpx-2 grigorichulaki$ gpx -c r2 taperedtube3.gcode taperedtube3.x3g

-bash: gpx: command not found

 

[grigori-chulaki 0]

and i've gotten 1 step further into uncharted territory. Any help?

 

./gpx -m r2 /Users/xxx/taperedtube3.gcode taperedtube.x3g

(line 2) Semantic warning: M140 cannot select non-existant heated build platform

(line 5) Semantic warning: M190 cannot select non-existant heated build platform

(line 46815) Buffer overflow: input exceeds 1023 character limit, remaining characters in line will be ignored

(line 2) Semantic warning: M140 cannot select non-existant heated build platform

(line 5) Semantic warning: M190 cannot select non-existant heated build platform

(line 46815) Buffer overflow: input exceeds 1023 character limit, remaining characters in line will be ignored

 

 

[Daid 304]

I think those warnings can be safely ignored?

 

[grigori-chulaki 0]

Dear Daid,

First off, thank you for your dedication and forward thinking. Cura is certainly interesting.

Secondly, in any video demonstration of Cura's slice view, the slices are ON the buildplate, but when I switch from normal view, the slices are always displayed to the left of the buildplate. Is this causing the issue I get when I run the GPX script? I cannot tell whether my input file is bad, the script is poorly written, or if I just don't know what the next possible command is. Since I'm not prompted with a y/n scenario, I'm in the dark.

Thanks for holding my hand; I hope this will be useful for someone.

 

[gr5 2,094]

the slices are always displayed to the left of the buildplate

This is a known bug. In machine settings, the Ultimaker does *not* have "center at (0,0)" checked but other printers do. So Daid doesn't always remember to test the code with that checked. The quick workaround is to uncheck that when testing with the layer view, then check it again before saving the gcode.

 

[gr5 2,094]

(line 46815) Buffer overflow: input exceeds 1023 character limit, remaining characters in line will be ignored

If this is a fatal error you can just delete that last line in the file which is just a huge comment that encodes all the settings you used when you created the gcode file.

Also if you set bed temperature to 0 it might (*might*) not include the m140 commands - not sure.

 

[grigori-chulaki 0]

Awesome explanations. Thanks!

I'm still figuring out how to set up the replicator2 ini file for X3G, as it seems to cause more issues when i supply my own ini file (and can't seem to find the settings in X3G's native scripts) such as extra errors.

 

(line 1) Semantic warning: M140 cannot select non-existant heated build platform

(line 4) Semantic warning: M190 cannot select non-existant heated build platform

(line 9) Semantic warning: Z axis homing to minimum endstop

(line 12) Semantic warning: Z axis homing to minimum endstop

(line 26347) Buffer overflow: input exceeds 1023 character limit, remaining characters in line will be ignored

it prints, but for some reason at 220C (detrimental to my filament performance) and quite slowly. Makerware's rafts are far better and has a intro leveling line. I'm willing to deal with it all, but I desperately need to print at 230C (and that's my Cura input). I can't get any replies from the X3G google group and I'm starting to wonder if Cura implementation is feasible at the moment.

 

Thanks everyone for being so quick and generous.