UltiTuner, a tool to tweak your printer

[Smithy 1,144]

Hi

I cannot say why your VirusTotal thinks there is malware.
Have you downloaded it directly from Github?

 

If yes, I am sorry, but cannot help in that case....

[Smithy 1,144]

I just googled a bit for this problem and it is a known problem with programs written in Go and cross complied for windows:

https://groups.google.com/g/golang-nuts/c/lPwiWYaApSU

 

I have tried some suggested workarounds for compiling, but was not successful.

 

So you just have two options, you can trust me or UltiTuner that it is not a Trojaner or you can download the source code from Github and compile it on your own. 

[dxp 23]

For me it is still working. I could clean the bed remotely (I knew, it was free but forgot to push the button.)

Thank you, Smithy! Helpful work.

[MBatWork 0]

Hello,
UltiTuner is quite a handy tool, thx for the nice work.
But a question that rose is there any possibility to fetch/show error messages which are shown on the printers screen remotely?
Sometimes i wonder why the print won't start and then i'd like to see the error message.

[Smithy 1,144]

Hi,

theoretically it should be possible the get somehow the error messages from the bus, but I don't know a possibility out of my head. I can take a look at it if I find something to fetch the current error.

 

Just for interest, Digital Factory or Cura itself should also show the error message, is that not feasible to your workflow?

[MBatWork 0]

2 hours ago, Smithy said:

Hi,

theoretically it should be possible the get somehow the error messages from the bus, but I don't know a possibility out of my head. I can take a look at it if I find something to fetch the current error.

 

Just for interest, Digital Factory or Cura itself should also show the error message, is that not feasible to your workflow?

Cura should show it?
Then i'll probably just have to update my CURA-Version.
My Version didn't show errors yet (or i didn't look right?).
I just saw the printer was in preparing state, when i visited it after a while i saw it had a height calibration error. (Filament oozed out and there was a bump under the nozzle).
In Digital Factory i didn't see the error aswell

 

[Smithy 1,144]

I thought you should see the state of the printer when you go to the monitoring tab in Cura, but when you say there is nothing helpful, just the state prepare, than I was wrong.

 

Let's see maybe I can find  something to show it in UltiTuner.

[tomnagel 126]

The forced Cooldown of the printbed is removed from all s-line printers in latest firmware. 
However, when a material station is connected, the material still needs to deprime (unload it from print core and form ideal tipshape). For PLA this happens at 60-70degC, and unfortunately that takes a long time to cool down to. 
This tipshape is absolutely needed for automatic unloading to the MS, and later loading it back to the printer. 
And yes: if your next job is with the same material, then this deprime is not needed. We may optimize this one day, but this optimization competes with many other cool stuff on the backlog. 
 

 

[PieterLemmens 0]

Hi @Smithy, 

I'm looking for some additional information on the webcam. Is there a brief manual for that? Can i plug in a usb webcam to the USB interface in the S5?
Thanks

Pieter.

 

Ps: the disabling of the leveling works fine.

[Smithy 1,144]

Hi Pieter

first of all, I don't work for Ultimaker, so all my knowledge is debugging, "reverse engineering" and try and error 🙂 

 

There are postings here in the forum that you can attach a USB webcam to the USB port and that it should work. (unofficial and not supported) You get an additional port number which is 1 higher than the built-in webcam. It seems it depends on the webcam you are using. I tried a Logitech webcam, but it was not working.

 

Beside that, I don't have any additional information about the webcam and I think there is also no manual for that, maybe UM internal, but nothing which is available for the public.

 

[Mangolicious 1]

At first: Thank you for this tool. The cooldown times with the 7.0 are were terrible. Also the one thing I hated the most was the active bed leveling. Gone in seconds. Perfect.

And I have another annoying message on the display. I print 99% with only one nozzle and change these quite often. The XY-calibration message is very annoying. Is it possible to disable the XY-nozzle calibration message?

[Smithy 1,144]

You are welcome!

I have the same issue with the XY-calibration message, I simply ignore it, but you are right, would be a nice add-on for UltiTuner. I am currently very limited on my spare time, but when I find a few moments to look into the firmware, maybe I can find something to turn if off.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[leonhart88 2]

@Smithy this is such a cool tool, thank you for your work on it.

 

Is there any chance you would be able to add manual jogging of the machine to this? We've made a camera assisted XY calibration tool (CXC) for our other machines but the Ultimakers don't have a manual jog method through the touchscreen, making it incompatible with our CXC.

 

I think it would be really cool if we could get this working on the Ultimaker machines. Printing line patterns can kind of suck and having camera alignment makes the alignment process easier and more accurate.

 

Thanks for your consideration!

 

https://www.emberprototypes.com/products/cxc

[Smithy 1,144]

@leonhart88 I think it will be a lot of work to implement it. You need functions to move the head, but that would be much more user friendly when it is implemented into the printers interface itself. Via the ssh connection you can use gcode commands to move the head, but if it is easy to use for an user - I don't know.

 

The other part is to store the values manually - I also guess that should be possible, but no idea how it is handled currently from the firmware and where I could find the functions. 

 

The whole firmware (most parts of it) is python code, so one could reverse engineer the needed parts and find out what is possible. But that's a lot of work, the code is not easy to understand, not because it is not commented or well structured, no absolutely not, but it is hard when you have no idea how the whole thing works with all these parts. So you have to go from one function to the next one, to understand how it could work.

 

The biggest problem with such hacks, includes also the current functions of Ultituner is, that with the next bigger firmware update, everything could be different and these things are not working anymore. Then you can start from the beginning with the reverse engineering.

[tomnagel 126]

5 hours ago, leonhart88 said:

@Smithy this is such a cool tool, thank you for your work on it.

 

Is there any chance you would be able to add manual jogging of the machine to this? We've made a camera assisted XY calibration tool (CXC) for our other machines but the Ultimakers don't have a manual jog method through the touchscreen, making it incompatible with our CXC.

 

I think it would be really cool if we could get this working on the Ultimaker machines. Printing line patterns can kind of suck and having camera alignment makes the alignment process easier and more accurate.

 

Thanks for your consideration!

 

https://www.emberprototypes.com/products/cxc

 

remote control of the print head is easy
 

Turn on developer mode

SSH into the printer, login with ultimaker/ultimaker

 

you can then send gcodes such as

sendgcode M105

or 

sendgcode G1 X100 Y100

 

Have you already figured out where to store the XY offset data?

[Smithy 1,144]

10 minutes ago, tomnagel said:

Have you already figured out where to store the XY offset data?

No, haven't looked into it yet, do you have some hints for me?

[tomnagel 126]

Search for the file printer_preferences.json

 

in that file, the XYZ offset between printcores is stored. XY is set by the user via the XY calibration procedure, the Z is measured by the printer during active leveling. 
The offset is stored for every pair of nozzles. 
I think you can easily figure it out by looking at the file, if you want help then feel free to ask

Edited February 3, 2023 by tomnagel

[Smithy 1,144]

Thanks a lot, will look into it....

[leonhart88 2]

On 2/3/2023 at 11:56 AM, Smithy said:

@leonhart88 I think it will be a lot of work to implement it. You need functions to move the head, but that would be much more user friendly when it is implemented into the printers interface itself. Via the ssh connection you can use gcode commands to move the head, but if it is easy to use for an user - I don't know.

 

The other part is to store the values manually - I also guess that should be possible, but no idea how it is handled currently from the firmware and where I could find the functions. 

 

The whole firmware (most parts of it) is python code, so one could reverse engineer the needed parts and find out what is possible. But that's a lot of work, the code is not easy to understand, not because it is not commented or well structured, no absolutely not, but it is hard when you have no idea how the whole thing works with all these parts. So you have to go from one function to the next one, to understand how it could work.

 

The biggest problem with such hacks, includes also the current functions of Ultituner is, that with the next bigger firmware update, everything could be different and these things are not working anymore. Then you can start from the beginning with the reverse engineering.

 

Yeah totally understand this can be a lot of work. SSH'ing and using gcode commands is exactly what I wouldn't want users to have to do haha...not the most intuitive or easiest for probably the vast majority of people. If Ultituner had a method to just jog the head left, right, up/down, and readout the current position that would be amazing.

 

In terms of the XY offset data...AFAIK you can currently override it manually on the touchscreen...it's just in a weird unitless value...but each unit is 73um from what support has told me. It would obviously be easier if your tool could read/write these values in mm, but not strictly necessary given the current touchscreen interface ability.

 

Understand your comment on the tool possibly being obsolete after a firmware change though. I'm actually surprised that the Ultimakers don't let you jog the head...almost every other printer lets you do this.

[leonhart88 2]

On 2/3/2023 at 2:17 PM, tomnagel said:

 

remote control of the print head is easy
 

Turn on developer mode

SSH into the printer, login with ultimaker/ultimaker

 

you can then send gcodes such as

sendgcode M105

or 

sendgcode G1 X100 Y100

 

Have you already figured out where to store the XY offset data?

 

This is relatively "easy" but not as easy as I would like for everyday users. Ideally they would be able to jog the machine using a graphical interface...either through a tool like this or through the touchscreen.

 

I'm actually surprised that no one has written a little app for this...or that Ultimaker themselves haven't implemented manual movement into the touchscreen. I know the use case might be pretty small...but it also seems like a relatively low effort implementation on their side as well.

 

 

[tomnagel 126]

Can you explain why you would want to manually move the print head in X and Y direction?

[Smithy 1,144]

He needs it for his camera assisted XY calibration tool: https://www.emberprototypes.com/products/cxc

 

10 hours ago, leonhart88 said:

SSH'ing and using gcode commands is exactly what I wouldn't want users to have to do haha...not the most intuitive or easiest for probably the vast majority of people. If Ultituner had a method to just jog the head left, right, up/down, and readout the current position that would be amazing.

 

@leonhart88

Also UltiTuner is using SSH to communicate with the printer, so the user has to enable the developer mode first on the printer, then UltiTuner can connect.

 

The tool is very simple it basically just sends different shell commands via ssh to the printer. Some modify a file (change a parameter) or triggers a DBUS message. You can check the code if you want, it is open source on GitHub. 

 

Also feel free to fork it or contribute the changes you need. 

[tinkergnome 927]

18 hours ago, leonhart88 said:

a method to just jog the head left, right, up/down, and readout the current position

 

AFAIK - each S-Line printer comes with a built-in API that can be utilized for such things.

I quote:

 

 

Moving the printhead needs authentication - the same principle as the connection with Cura via local network (the cloud API is a different thing).

 

Links in these old articles do not work anymore, but all the rest is still valid AFAIK:

 

 

There are some working examples (python script) that i still use today on the good ol' UM3:

 

 

[leonhart88 2]

On 2/5/2023 at 2:04 AM, Smithy said:

He needs it for his camera assisted XY calibration tool: https://www.emberprototypes.com/products/cxc

 

 

@leonhart88

Also UltiTuner is using SSH to communicate with the printer, so the user has to enable the developer mode first on the printer, then UltiTuner can connect.

 

The tool is very simple it basically just sends different shell commands via ssh to the printer. Some modify a file (change a parameter) or triggers a DBUS message. You can check the code if you want, it is open source on GitHub. 

 

Also feel free to fork it or contribute the changes you need. 

Not sure when I can get around to it, but I'll take a look at the Github and see what I can do...will keep you posted!

[robinmdh 100]

@leonhart88 I think you'll have to write some code to do this, the xy calibration in the ultimaker is set as for the combination of serial numbers, making this a bit more complex, the calibration is only applied when a print starts and removed after, there is also a large offset that Cura knows about, which differs per printer model a bit. this is set as the hotend_offset_1_x(18mm for the UM3) and hotend_offset_1_y (0 AFAIK) properties.

The offset is set in steps of ~ 0.07 mm since a research paper suggested that as a the smallest difference the average human can see with the naked eye.