Hi, I would second your requests.
Take a look at the "nerd-fork" of the firmware:
http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/5990-nerd-fork/
I have not tested it (yet). It seems it has all the information on the display. (hours are with decimals, not with minutes. But the information is there)
Nice ! How can I get a ready firmware? The link is way abvove my computer knowhow ;-)
Uli
Nice ! How can I get a ready firmware? The link is way abvove my computer knowhow :wink:
I have not a clue. 
I would welcome a "ready to upload version" of this firmware, too.
https://github.com/norpchen/Ultimaker2Marlin/tree/master/Compiled%20Binary
He has hex files there.
There is always a battle between "people wanting more information" and "keeping stuff KISS". But that shouldn't stop you from installing this excellent addition to the firmware.
It might be an idea to offer the user the possibility to switch between the two views by a menu setting? As there are the quick and the full settings in Cura...?
https://github.com/norpchen/Ultimaker2Marlin/tree/master/Compiled%20Binary
He has hex files there.
There is always a battle between "people wanting more information" and "keeping stuff KISS". But that shouldn't stop you from installing this excellent addition to the firmware.
That's great. Thanks !
(This is why I choose Ultimaker)
I've been running it the past month with no major issues.
Curious to hear from anyone who tries it -- feedback is always welcome. :-P
I can add current Z-height easily, if I can find a place to squeeze it in on that already cramped display area.
Oh, I should add that if you do try this firmware, be sure to set your materials to defaults when you first run it -- the stored materials eeprom values between the official firmware and this firmware don't match. There is some sanity checking in there, but it's best to reset it (you won't see the additional "exotic" materials in the menu unless you reset to defaults as well).
(likewise if you go from this firmware back to the official one)
I've been running it the past month with no major issues.
Curious to hear from anyone who tries it -- feedback is always welcome. :-P
I can add current Z-height easily, if I can find a place to squeeze it in on that already cramped display area.
I started working on my own version that uses a much smaller font to make something like this possible:
I got annoyed quickly though because of how slow it is to iterate small changes. But the code to print with that font is there if you're interested in using that?
edit: Why am I here at 3:20AM... ffs, go to sleep Robert...
1
This is a great layout, Robert!
However, instead of the line number I think a custom line written by a M117 would be interesting...
I think that's an interesting option. The small font looks readable -- how does it hold up at a distance of 1-2m? I want to keep everything clear and easy to understand at a glance, without my glasses on. 
I've tried playing with font sizes before, with mixed results. At the very least I might look at yours as a template for making a new font that's a bit smaller to gain an extra row.
It looks like you can mix it with larger fonts as well? That would be nice so we could keep the most important information larger / more visible and shrink the less important stuff.
What I've done in the past was to "time slice" the less dynamic values -- so something like head temperature would switch to bed temperature every 2 seconds or so, time-remaining switches with filename, etc.
@Dim3nsioneer: I threw in the line number just as a test to fill out the space. That image is all photoshop.
@selmo: I simply added another definition for a font and copied and tweaked a couple of the existing functions for printing to the display to use my font instead. So the old bigger font is still there. Whether or not you can read it from a distance depends on your eye sight I guess 
The top line gets difficult to read if you're looking down at the printer since the display is recessed quite far. I figure you could put less important info like the current filename or elapsed time up there. I have a couple of other mockups that look a bit different as well.
I'll just be lazy and copy paste the parts you need into pastebin:
At the bottom is how I was testing it. I hope it's not broken since I can't remember what I was doing last time (it's been a while) but you're more capable than me so I'm sure you'll figure it out if it is
OK, thanks. I'll look into it more next time I have a moment.
One issue I ran into with *some* LCD libraries is they are optimized for an 8 bit (ie: one byte) tall pixel height ( 5x7 font) and everything breaks if it's not 8 pixels tall. And they certainly had no provision for a variable width font, so I'm interested to see how well your stuff works and may port it into some other libraries.
I also may change the numbers to be fixed width, as variable width numbers to make columns jump around.
I wish this display was the default for UM2. I feel like this is pretty vital information that even regular users would appreciate. Not that I don't trust this firmware, but it would be nice to have this part of the main branch so we could continue to get updates. IE: Seems like this branch hasn't been updated to 14.07.0 yet.
I think part of the UM marketing strategy is to make the printer look "less techy" so they can reach a broader audience. If people don't see all that tech info they think it's easier in use i guess?
In any case, it has annoyed me to bits that there is no "geek version" of the info display. Sure you can get to the temperature and material flow status by using the tune menu, but height and so on during a print? Forget it...
I got annoyed quickly though because of how slow it is to iterate small changes.
There is a whole simulation environment for the PC with the code. Takes a bit of work to setup, but after that you can do pretty quick iterations.
I wonder why no one is interested in the elapsed time. Since print time estimates are way off, it would be very nice to actually know how long a print took (just in case if you print another one and need to decide if you want to invest the same amount of time again).
The UM2 has a simple, streamlined look and I don't think an advanced control panel with lots of gizmos and blinky lights fits their aesthethic (more Evo than Wall-E). The nerd-fork display may overwhelm those who don't understand what those numbers mean. It may even invite people to tweak things they don't understand? It shouldn't be the default, but perhaps offered as an option for advanced users? It does make it easier to troubleshoot printing and UM customer service could use it when helping customers.
Even without an advanced display panel, pulling in the nerd-fork's more informative use of the RGB led, encoder ring, speaker and lighting LEDs would not complicate the experience. I'm sure Daid has nothing but time to for that.
A spiffy display is a pandora's box -- everyone has different ideas about what's most important. Screen space is tight.
I've thought about implementing some sort of simple configuration script to let users decide what info to put into a fixed grid of "slots." But how to let users tweak that? Requiring users to re-compile is not very friendly, but a UI/menu based configuration tool sounds like more work than it's worth. Maybe read a text file from the SD card and store the config in EEPROM?
Selmo that's pretty much exactly what I said when I was asked at the Ulti-Evening what i would improve on my UM2 Now let's hope it will be done.
There is a whole simulation environment for the PC with the code. Takes a bit of work to setup, but after that you can do pretty quick iterations.
Interesting. I'm assuming there aren't instructions for that already available somewhere?
I wonder why no one is interested in the elapsed time. Since print time estimates are way off, it would be very nice to actually know how long a print took (just in case if you print another one and need to decide if you want to invest the same amount of time again).
I am. I had it included in one of my mockups in some thread from way back. Like you say it would be nice to help get a better grasp on the actual print times.
The UM2 has a simple, streamlined look and I don't think an advanced control panel with lots of gizmos and blinky lights fits their aesthethic (more Evo than Wall-E). The nerd-fork display may overwhelm those who don't understand what those numbers mean. It may even invite people to tweak things they don't understand? It shouldn't be the default, but perhaps offered as an option for advanced users? It does make it easier to troubleshoot printing and UM customer service could use it when helping customers.
Agreed. Maybe not the default but I think it should be an official fork, a supported option so that updates are maintained. As you said, just having the option available would help a lot for troubleshooting, non-advanced users could enable it if they need it to solve issues.
This is very interesting, i will give it a try i think.
I really have to find some time to dig into code (i'm a software developper but in Java) it looks very interesting.
Would love to have more information like in lRobertl's mockup but what is already done gives most of the interesting stuff. Reading the github i assume the hex contains the last firmware?
The hex file in github is the latest version of the source in github, so you can just install that without compiling if you just want to try it out. It's been working great on my UM2 for the past couple months.
It's a couple updates behind Daid's releases; I've been meaning to do a resync... one "risk" of this firmware is it's a "when I get the time" sorta thing. (I've also been holding off doing a resync so I could get some testing of my changes without brining in anything new.)
ArunC posted a topic in UltiMaker Cura,
.thumb.jpeg.0b7a05eafc09add17b8338efde5852e9.jpeg)
Dustin posted a topic in Firmware,
Recommended Posts
jbeale 0
One thing I'd like to see is the current Z-height of the platform, sometimes I want to watch for a feature to appear which I know is x mm up from the surface.
Link to post
Share on other sites