Connection issues with original Ultimaker

[deshawn 0]

My original ultimaker worked fine until i updated the version of Cura. Long story, but I had to replace the stepper drivers (that's a long story too).

Here is where i am now:

Running:

Windows 7 home premium

Cura 14.03

 

I have replaced the original stepper drivers with 4

Pololu StepStick drivers with Pot set to 3.05 ohms

And have set the pot for 3.017 ohms.

 

when i plug the USB cable in & turn on the power, the LED6 and LED7 are brightly lite. (i considered that a good sign since before 6 would dim).

 

I have the machine settings to 9600 baud and it finds the Ardunio with the motherboard disconnected AND connected.

 

Here is the problem: When i go to run the Cura first time wizard and update the firmware, it just sits there trying to connect and never does. No error msgs, no sign anything is wrong, just doesn't connect. SInce i can see the Ardunio on com24, i assume the port and cable are good.

Any ideas what i can test next or what i should set the pots at (if that is even the problem).

 

Thanks for you help, I hope i posted this to the correct board. I searched and did not see similar issues.

 

 

 

[gr5 2,172]

9600 baud is very very slow for the arduino. The default for Cura is I think 110000 baud (or 250000 baud)- something like that. Approx 10X or 20X faster. Those are the only 2 speeds Cura works at.

If you must upload at 9600 then use pronterface which lets you set the baudrate to lower baud rates. You can get pronterface here:

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/printrun/

 

Also if you want to PRINT at 9600 as well you need to modify Marlin. The defaults are I think 110K baud and 250k baud. You can build your own custom Marlin here with a baud rate of 9600 easily:

http://marlinbuilder.robotfuzz.com/

However be aware that even at 250k baud, sometimes if the lines segments are really short (e.g. in the yoda head) even 250k baud is too slow to print "live". The USB just isn't as fast as the printer. For printing a cube, 9600 baud should be fine as there is only 4 line segments per layer (as opposed to typically 100,000 line segments per layer for something made from zbrush - like yoda).

 

[gr5 2,172]

The benefit of lower baud rates is of course you are probably less likely to get all these checksum errors. Maybe.

 

[deshawn 0]

I thought 9600 was the default and increased my chances for it working. I thought that was very slow, but oh well. I heard the motors burp and it could connect to update the firmware, so i was confused.

OK, i just set it to 250000 and get a lot of info when i click error log, it included:

Changing monitoring state from 'Connecting' to 'Operational'

Send: M105 T0

Recv: ok T:21.0 /0.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:0

Send: M104 S200 T0

Send: M104 S200 T0

Recv: ok

Recv: ok

Send: M105 T0

Recv: ok T:21.1 /200.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:127

Send: M105 T0

Recv: ok T:19.1 /200.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:127

Send: M105 T0

Recv: ok T:13.0 /200.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:127

Recv: Error:0

Recv: : Extruder switched off. MINTEMP triggered !

Changing monitoring state from 'Operational' to 'Error: 0: Extruder switched off. MINTEMP t...'

Recv: Error:Printer stopped deu to errors. Fix the error and use M999 to restart!. (Temperature is reset. Set it before restarting)

 

Does extruder switched off mean the stepper controller is bad?

 

 

[gr5 2,172]

Sorry I missed your post.

Does extruder switched off mean the stepper controller is bad?

No. If the temp is lower than I believe 170C then the extruder is switched off to avoid grinding the filament. You can override this with a M command.

MINTEMP might be an error though - not sure. Probably not. There is also a MINTEMP ERROR but I think this log above just shows the normal extruder-switch-off flag.