ReplicatorG 0014 and Firmware v2 available
It's pretty hard to make bugfixes look futuristic and cool in a screenshot.
Rejoice, Makerbot Operators: ReplicatorG 0014 is now available! The focus of this release is bug fixes and stability, so very little has visibly changed, but you should find this release far less likely to hang or break, especially if you’re using Windows or Mac OS X.
We’ve also unleashed v2.0 of the firmware for both the motherboard and the extruder controller into the wild. You can install them using the firmware uploader built in to ReplicatorG 0013 or later. The v2 firmware should allow smoother printing over serial connections and reduce unpredictable behavior.
Install it and give it a whirl, and as always let me know if you run into any problems or have suggestions for improving ReplicatorG or the firmware!
A few goodies for advanced users after the cut.
One of the goals of the v2 firmware, aside from stability, is runtime configurability. If you go to the “Onboard Preferences…” dialogs in 0014, you’ll see that you can now tweak a number of new parameters:
- You can select your endstop type, for users who use old-style non-inverting endstops.
- You can now tweak the heated build platform thermistor settings independently of the extruder thermistor settings.
- You can set the motor reversal parameters on the extruder, so you can tweak the distance the motor backs up when extrusion stops.
If there are other features you’d like to see made configurable in upcoming releases of the firmware or software, post a comment or drop me a line. Thanks!
| Tagged with | 18 comments | |
18 Comments so far
Ben Rockhold
I need to flip the pinout for motors one and two, because my motor controller for motor one is not working. Where’s the source for the 2.0 firmware located right now?
Adam
Hi Ben;
The source is in GitHub, in the same repository as the v1 code. I’ve got a page up on the wiki describing how to build the new stuff:
http://wiki.makerbot.com/v2-firmware
The file you’ll want to change is v2/src/Motherboard/boards/rrmb12/Configuration.hh. However, it sounds like you might be able to solve your particular problem by just switching the ribbon cables on your machine.
Dave
Newbie question from somebody who just finished putting his batch 12 together about an hour ago.
These are two different firmwares, yes? If so, and if they don’t always rev in lockstep, it might be nice to name them a little differently so that the names reflect which boards they go to.
When I fired up RepG tonight, I was a little confused that both my current FWs were 1.6 and it was suggesting I upgrade to 2.0. Couldn’t help wondering if it was confused and reporting the wrong number for one of them.
Just a thought…
Jeff
Adam
We are just about to give our Megarep it’s first test. http://thinkaweek.blogspot.com/
Stepper motors on the extruder have been our baseline from the onset of the design. On Que here comes a new batch of software to make the job easier. Does this version have built in stepper motor extruder support? If so how do we turn it on and is there documentation yet?
Adam
Dave;
Yes, it’s a little confusing. We’ve been shipping with the v1.6 firmware for each board loaded up. Once v2.0 has been out for a few days, we’ll start preloading the boards with that.
Jeff;
v2 doesn’t support a stepper motor out of the box, but I’m planning on adding that for v2.1. Once it’s supported, you’ll be able to turn it on in the onboard parameters dialog. If you need stepper support immediately, you may want to run with a variant of v1.8 on the extruder controller. Although both firmwares have been rewritten, they still speak the same protocol, so you can probably use v2 on the motherboard and v1.8 on the extruder until v2 stepper support is done.
Ben Rockhold
Adam, I was not clear at all; I mean the motors on the extruder board (should have specified). I’ll try and work it out with the source.
Adam
Ben;
Ah, I see. The file you’ll want is v2/src/Extruder/boards/ecv22/Configuration.hh, then.
German RepRap Foundation
German translation: http://grrf.de/2010/04/15/reprap-firmware-v2-verfuegbar
Jeff
Adam
I am glad to hear that native stepper extruder support is on its way.
I was getting excited when you were talking about having the ability to reverse the extruder. I didn’t know that it was possible with the DC motor setup.
What is your time frame for ver 2.1?
Is the plan to eventually just have a fourth axis on the main board?
Jeff
peter
thanks for adding this, adam. i’ve been waiting for you to add an easy parameter in the GUI to adjust the start/stop times, and had to tinker with the firmware before to do it
.
best,
peter
Mike Cook
Can’t get V14 to work at all, it will not send anything out of the serial port. V13 works and I copied the machine file over. I get an error message telling me that the serial port I specify is busy and another one saying I have an incompatibility in the serial drivers. I am running Snow Leopard on a Mac Power Book pro and running the serialpassthorugh driver.
Adam
Hi Mike;
There have been some changes to the serial layer that may have broken the passthrough driver. I’m diagnosing it now; hopefully I’ll have a fix later in the day.
As for the second problem, if the error test is along the lines of:
[java] WARNING: RXTX Version mismatch
[java] Jar version = RXTX-2.2pre1
[java] native lib Version = RXTX-2.2pre2
then it is a known bug in RXTX and can be ignored.
Adam
A quick followup to Mike’s comment:
The problem has been fixed in the repository; if you want to give it a whirl, check out ReplicatorG from github. Otherwise, the fix will appear in ReplicatorG 0015. Thanks for the bug report!
Mike Cook
Thanks Adam that appears to fix it. I haven’t got my Gcode interpreter to plug into it at this location. With just the USB plugged in it says it is connected then a short time after that it says “Serial link non-responsive”, I assume it is OK, it never did say that with 13, with that I could fire off commands and see the LEDs flash on my USB / RS232 lead. Anyway I will try it when I next get at my machine. Just doing milling CNC with it and only have one axis going as yet so I have a way to go but thanks for the rapid fix. Cheers.
Tasty Bento
What are the default settings for the reversal parameters? In an effort to get oozebane working with Skeinforge I zeroed them out and did not jot down the values. I’d like to try with them back in, but a haven’t found a way to reset them to default. Reinstalling ReplicatorG and reflashing the extruder firmware didn’t seem to help. Thanks in advance.
Josh Updyke
Any idea when version 2.1 with the stepper motor control for the extruder will be available. I would really like to use it. I have been trying to use a modified version of the 1.8, but I am having mixed results.
Thanks in advance
Mike Cook
When I got round to trying it with those updates I still had problems:-
Reset.
Initializing Serial.
starting
Ready to rock.
Creating panel for Rotory Miller
At this stage G90 is sen to the Gcode interpreter next I open the control panel and get:-
Exception in thread “Control Panel Update Thread” java.lang.RuntimeException: Position reconcilliation requested, but not implemented for this driver
at replicatorg.drivers.DriverBaseImplementation.reconcilePosition(DriverBaseImplementation.java:225)
at replicatorg.drivers.DriverBaseImplementation.getCurrentPosition(DriverBaseImplementation.java:230)
at replicatorg.app.ui.ControlPanelWindow.updateStatus(ControlPanelWindow.java:857)
at replicatorg.app.ui.ControlPanelWindow$UpdateThread.run(ControlPanelWindow.java:1095)
Then when I try a command set zero:-
Exception in thread “AWT-EventQueue-0″ java.lang.RuntimeException: Position reconcilliation requested, but not implemented for this driver
at replicatorg.drivers.DriverBaseImplementation.reconcilePosition(DriverBaseImplementation.java:225)
at replicatorg.drivers.DriverBaseImplementation.getCurrentPosition(DriverBaseImplementation.java:230)
at replicatorg.app.ui.ControlPanelWindow.actionPerformed(ControlPanelWindow.java:886)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton.fireActionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:2028)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton$Handler.actionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:2351)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.fireActionPerformed(DefaultButtonModel.java:387)
Adam
Hi Mike;
Which driver do you have selected in the machine>driver menu?