USB delay

[abtrooper82 0]

Running Cura 4.6.2 with an Ender 3 over USB from Windows 10. When I first start up Cura, load an STL, slice it. It can then take anything up 30 seconds to give me the option to print via USB. No other slicers do this, once the detected, the software works fine.

 

Any ideas why.

[ahoeben 1,948]

Printing over USB has not gotten any serious attention from Ultimaker over the past 4 years. It is not something Ultimaker has any interest in. So even if your Cura version is recent, the part that does printing over USB is basically 4 years old and unmaintained. If it works, that is great. If it doesn't, my best advice is not to use it.

 

Export gcode and use SD card printing, use a different application for printing that gcode over USB (eg printrun), or use OctoPrint. OctoPrint can run on your PC, but you'll get the most out of it with a small board computer like the raspberry pi; if your computer restarts for updates or outright crashes, this would not affect your print.

 

2 hours ago, abtrooper82 said:

Any ideas why.

 

Instead of being smart about it and storing the last known working port and baudrate, Cura opens all your serial ports one by one and tries to connect at a list of different baudrates before finding your printer. That takes time on your system, apparently.

[GregValiant 1,251]

Ahoeben types faster than me...

Cura has to start up the USB printing plugin and initialize it.  Then it polls the printer for certain settings (like temperature).  Once loaded though, if you were to start a second print it's nearly instantaneous.

 

I have to ask though, why over USB?  There are known issues when using Cura or Pronterface as host software (I don't know about Octoprint).  Random pausing that requires a button click to re-start tops the list.  I know my E3Pro much prefers the SD card.

Edited August 21, 2020 by GregValiant

[ahoeben 1,948]

3 minutes ago, GregValiant said:

Ahoeben types faster than me...

Ahoeben cheated by copy/pasting a previous comment he made.

[abtrooper82 0]

Thanks everyone, yes I have looked at Octoprint and TBH been lazy and maybe revist. Don't have any other problems with USB, although I not one to run big long prints at the moment so that might change things.