Ultimaker 2+ Connect issues

[Nico04 0]

Hello,

 

I've just bought a brand new UM2C, coming from UM2GO.

I'm very happy with the print quality, it's a real gap.

But I'm quite disapointed by the software : there are way less options that on my previous printer, and it's heavily slow.

Some details :

 

1. I've added a Ziflex on the plate, but unfortunately I can't use my printer anymore because the calibration is only physical (using screws) and I've reach the end before teh right settings. On the Ultimaker 2 Go there is a 'software' calibration first where you can move the plate up and done, which would solve this issues. How can I do the same ?
2. It's very slow to start, much much more than my old UM2GO, way more than my laptop... And it's brand new, what's happening ?
3. The feature "Skip cooldown" introduces some bugs : If I change the material, then skip cooldown, and immediately start a print, it will hang forever on the "preparing" screen.
4. How can I change settings while printing, like the printing speed ?
5. I'd like to use my printer on my local network, without internet, how can I do that ?
6. The open WiFi of the printer is always on, even after it's connected to my network, how can I disabled it ?

I'm on firmware 1.2

 

Thanks for your help.
Have a nice day.

 

[gr5 2,172]

I don't have a UM2+C and have never touched one.  I know a few who have one but that's no substitute.  I do have the S5.

 

#2 - yes - very slow boot.  Just like UM S5 and S3.  It's booting Linux - a very advanced operating system.  Similar to Windows but on a slower cell-phone-like processor.  This is normal.

 

1,4,5,6 - The feature set is quite small compared to the UM2 series printers.  I think this is on purpose.  They will probably add a few features but unlikely these 4 (I guess they are most likely to fix the #3 bug).  I love my um2go so I got 3 of them (and added heated beds). 

 

The UM2+C I think is aimed at non-experts.  Because you are an expert I would have predicted you would be dissapointed about many of the features.  It's also aimed at print farms where you have many printers and you want them all to work the same way so you can queue up prints and schedule prints and such "on the cloud".

 

Unlike the S5, the UM2+C doesn't allow you to ssh into it.  That is absolutely a "not interested in this printer" feature for me.  With the S5 I can ssh in and I have the full power of linux including an immense selection of network tools and settings that go beyond a MAC or PC even (e.g. mesh networks maybe?).  On the S5 you can configure wifi and ethernet to no end.

 

Hopefully someone more knowledgable will answer your questions.

[gr5 2,172]

39 minutes ago, Nico04 said:

s) and I've reach the end before teh right settings

Can't you just turn the 3 screws the other way for quite a while and start over with the manual leveling?

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

44 minutes ago, Nico04 said:

1. I've added a Ziflex on the plate, but unfortunately I can't use my printer anymore because the calibration is only physical (using screws) and I've reach the end before teh right settings.

 

Wow, how thick is that plate that pulling the bed down is not sufficient?

 

@gr5 already gave the spot-on explanation for no. 2.

 

46 minutes ago, Nico04 said:

3. The feature "Skip cooldown" introduces some bugs : If I change the material, then skip cooldown, and immediately start a print, it will hang forever on the "preparing" screen.

 

Sounds like a bug. Please report it to your reseller so it can be passed on.

 

47 minutes ago, Nico04 said:

4. How can I change settings while printing, like the printing speed ?

 

I'm away from my UM2+ Connect atm, so can't check it. If there is no tune menu there yet, I imagine there will be and it will be more populated in future.

 

48 minutes ago, Nico04 said:

5. I'd like to use my printer on my local network, without internet, how can I do that ?

 

You can't and you will never been able to. It was advertized to be cloud-based right from the start.

 

49 minutes ago, Nico04 said:

6. The open WiFi of the printer is always on, even after it's connected to my network, how can I disabled it ?

 

You have the printer connected through Ethernet and it still has a WiFi enabled? That would sound like a bug too you might want to report through your reseller.

[Smithy 1,144]

1 hour ago, Nico04 said:

1. I've added a Ziflex on the plate, but unfortunately I can't use my printer anymore because the calibration is only physical (using screws) and I've reach the end before teh right settings. On the Ultimaker 2 Go there is a 'software' calibration first where you can move the plate up and done, which would solve this issues. How can I do the same ?

The leveling process is different, there is (currently) just the manual method with the screws only. So when your Ziflex is thinner than the glass you will run into problems. Can you put the Ziflex on the glass? Because thicker should be no problem.

 

1 hour ago, Nico04 said:

2. It's very slow to start, much much more than my old UM2GO, way more than my laptop... And it's brand new, what's happening ?

The printer uses a new linux board and as far as I know there are some check during the startup. Maybe it will get faster with further updates, but currently it is really slow that's right.

 

1 hour ago, Nico04 said:

3. The feature "Skip cooldown" introduces some bugs : If I change the material, then skip cooldown, and immediately start a print, it will hang forever on the "preparing" screen.

I also have seen this bug without using the skip cooldown function, just changed the material. It seems it is a bug in 1.2, because I haven't seen it before.

 

1 hour ago, Nico04 said:

4. How can I change settings while printing, like the printing speed ?

Currently not possible, there is no TUNE menu.

 

1 hour ago, Nico04 said:

5. I'd like to use my printer on my local network, without internet, how can I do that ?

Not possible, it is cloud based only. You can only use the USB stick if you don't have internet. But Cura can not send a print job directly to the printer, only via the digital factory (cloud)

 

 

 

 

[Nico04 0]

 

Thank you for all theses answsers.

 

1. The Ziflex is less than 3mm thick, and is directly ON the glass plate. In order to compensate this thickness, I need to screw the 3 screws much more, but I reach the maximum point before 2mm, so the printer head touch the plate during calibration phrase. I see no way how to fix that...
The issue, as @Smithy said, is that currently there is ONLY the screw method to calibrate.

 

21 hours ago, gr5 said:

Can't you just turn the 3 screws the other way for quite a while and start over with the manual leveling?

As such, I don't understand your suggestion @gr5 ?
 

21 hours ago, Smithy said:

Can you put the Ziflex on the glass? Because thicker should be no problem.

It's already on the glass, so it's on the other way. Actually I can go much further when unscrewing (doesn't help here though)

EDIT : maybe I can use the printer settings on Cura to help me with that ? Any idea how ?

2. Is the S-line faster to boot then ?

5.

21 hours ago, Dim3nsioneer said:

You have the printer connected through Ethernet and it still has a WiFi enabled? That would sound like a bug too you might want to report through your reseller.

I'm connected through WiFi, but still have the open wifi (used for the first connection).

 

For the others points, I've seen in the changelogs that they added new feature in the 1.2, so I hope the ones missing will soon appears in the coming weeks.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by Nico04

[Smithy 1,144]

5 hours ago, Nico04 said:

Is the S-line faster to boot then ?

Yes I have the feeling that they are a little bit faster. But personally I don't care about it, because I don't turn the printers off, they always on, also when not printing.

 

5 hours ago, Nico04 said:

t's already on the glass, so it's on the other way. Actually I can go much further when unscrewing (doesn't help here though)

EDIT : maybe I can use the printer settings on Cura to help me with that ? Any idea how ?

 

Ok, understood. And when you do it without glass, have you tried that?

Theoretically you could use the Z-offset plugin to give every Z position an offset, but if that really solves the whole problem? I would not do it. Better to look for a thinner glass plate, that you have overall (with your Ziflex) he same thickness. I have a Filafarm Swichplate on my UM3 and there is a thinner glass plate included that you don't have the hight problems. But that's because of the active leveling.

 

To be honest, I would print on glass and wait a little bit, maybe an update brings some fixes for that.

 

 

[gr5 2,172]

I don't understand leveling on the UM2+C so my earlier comments about that can be ignored.

 

However since you want the bed *farther* from the nozzle this is kind of easy.  Maybe.  You want to reset Z=0 so you want to add these gcodes *after* it homes.

 

Homing commands are G28.  For example G28 Z0.  Or just plain "G28".

 

Somewhere after that - maybe immediately - do this:

G0 Z2.00
G92 Z0

 

The first command moves the bed up until it is 2mm above bed (according to where it thinks is the bed which of course is about 2mm off).  The second command (G92) resets the coordinates (for Z axis only in this case) such that we are now officially at Z=0 (which used to be thought of as Z=2).

 

You can adjust the 2.00 to other values until you get it perfect.

 

I don't know how you would redo leveling but foruntatly the hardware should keep a consistent level for months.

 

The pain in the neck is adding these 2 gcodes into every gcode file.  You can do that with a plugin that you could write (there are very simple examples to start with in python) or possibly with editing the "start gcodes" in the machine settings (probably you can't do that).

 

Come to think of it - it's possible that there might not even be a G28 in the gcode as it may be automated before it gets to the gcode (along with nozzle purge possibly?).  In which case you would put the above codes at the very start.

[haeh 0]

On 1/6/2021 at 7:46 PM, gr5 said:

#2 - yes - very slow boot.  Just like UM S5 and S3.  It's booting Linux - a very advanced operating system.  Similar to Windows but on a slower cell-phone-like processor.  This is normal.

 

It's an old thread so sorry to reply now, but since I was directed here from google when searching about the slow boot of UM2+C, it's worth correcting the statement above.

 

The UM2+C does NOT run linux, but just a version of Marlin.

If you check the schematics of the mainboard used, the microcontroller used is an ATMEGA2560, which is WAY WAY too slow to run any operating system. It runs just Marlin, and it's also not particularly good at it, if you consider that Marlin above a certain speed starts sending steps to the motors not uniformly, but in groups of two or four. 

Check "marlin double quad stepping", which starts happening at 10 kHz, which means for the UM2 series 125 mm/s.

 

So we don't know why the UM2+C is so slow, but it's not linux.

[Dustin 129]

6 hours ago, haeh said:

 

It's an old thread so sorry to reply now, but since I was directed here from google when searching about the slow boot of UM2+C, it's worth correcting the statement above.

 

The UM2+C does NOT run linux, but just a version of Marlin.

If you check the schematics of the mainboard used, the microcontroller used is an ATMEGA2560, which is WAY WAY too slow to run any operating system. It runs just Marlin, and it's also not particularly good at it, if you consider that Marlin above a certain speed starts sending steps to the motors not uniformly, but in groups of two or four. 

Check "marlin double quad stepping", which starts happening at 10 kHz, which means for the UM2 series 125 mm/s.

 

So we don't know why the UM2+C is so slow, but it's not linux.

Actually now you're wrong as well.

While you are correct about the UMO, UM2, UM2+.

The UltiMaker 2+ Connect runs a dual microcontroller system.
The motion board is still powered by the ATMEGA but the parent controlling system and what drives the display and networking is indeed a linux based system powered by an onion module.
The ATMEGA is running a slimmed down version of marlin that mostly only processes commands from the master linux system.

Though regrettably, yes the boot time of the 2+ Connect is very slow, there is not much that can be done about this.

Since the release of the UltiMaker 3, and to the current S7. All printers run this dual microcontroller configuration though they have all gotten faster primary controller processor upgrades/memory/etc. This is why a S series (S3,S5,S7) will boot considerably faster in most cases.

This is also why its not possible to plug a modern UltiMaker S series or 2+ Connect (or even UM3) into a computer via USB. The printer no longer functions as a client but a self contained host and client.