E3D V6

The place to discuss your hardware and software/firmware modifications...
Toby
Posts: 330
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:44 pm

Re: E3D V6

Post by Toby » Wed Jun 04, 2014 3:51 pm

Thanks, Ed. My knowledge of circuitry is long on theory and extremely short on practice. I did have the realization "this thing draws power that any resistor has to be able to absorb. I kind of doubt those little radio shack resistors will work." Just enough to make me wary, but not enough to solve the problem.

My main reason for ordering the v6 is to use with flexible filament. Even if it works great I'm not going to want to mix it with pla or abs. But if changing hot ends is an ordeal, I won't want to do it. Just swapping connectors that have whatever circuitry I need to make it work plus sending a command or two over the usb connection is about the limit of my tolerance on this one I think.

Tim- I don't think there's a significant difference between .35 and .4 mm nozzles. It's not even clear it matters in the S3D settings, as long as your extrusion width is above the nozzle diameter.

I imagine the problem with small diameter nozzles (other than longer print times and a greater chance of clogging) is that they force you to go to smaller layer heights to keep the height/width proportion within bounds. I think it's the low layer heights that make printing with them tricky.

User avatar
jimc
Posts: 2888
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 11:30 pm
Location: mullica, nj
Contact:

Re: E3D V6

Post by jimc » Wed Jun 04, 2014 3:54 pm

Tim i have have the 12/19v m2 as well and other than the filament drive, putting molex connectors on the thermistor and heater and switching the temp table its a plug and play. The correct temp table is bult into marlin already. I think makergear its set to use table 1. You just change the 1 to a 5, upload and its done. They do have .35 nozzles avail but its not a standard size for the US. Filastruder doesnt have them that i know of so mine was ordered with a .4. I havent really noticed any difference. Still nice detail with it. As i said earlier the e3d seems to print same nice quality as the makergear but easier to control to oozing. I pretty much took all my retraction and coast settings and cut them in half.

User avatar
Tim
Posts: 1205
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:19 pm
Location: Poolesville, Maryland
Contact:

Re: E3D V6

Post by Tim » Wed Jun 04, 2014 4:52 pm

I fail to find any significant information on the forum regarding modifications to firmware. Unless I missed one, a basic how-to would be useful. I noticed that S3D has a pulldown menu item for "firmware", but it's not clear to me whether that makes changes to the firmware on the rambo or whether it just imports and exports firmware files. Anyway, I'm guessing that I need to use the 1st firmware version (1/8 stepper) from the MakerGear site, and upload it via Arduino software.

As for "changing the 1 to a 5", it looks to me like I need to change Configuration.h under "Thermal Settings":

//// Temperature sensor settings:
// 1 is 100k thermistor - best choice for EPCOS 100k (4.7k pullup)
// 5 is 100K thermistor - ATC Semitec 104GT-2 (Used in ParCan & J-Head) (4.7k pullup)

#define TEMP_SENSOR_0 1
#define TEMP_SENSOR_1 1
#define TEMP_SENSOR_2 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_BED 1

so I assume that I need only to change the one line:

#define TEMP_SENSOR_0 5

to make sure it uses thermistor table 5?

User avatar
jimc
Posts: 2888
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 11:30 pm
Location: mullica, nj
Contact:

Re: E3D V6

Post by jimc » Wed Jun 04, 2014 5:01 pm

Yes tim thats it. Thats all you need to change in the firmware. You dont need to switch firmwares or anything like that. Keep whatever you running now and just change that # and your good to go.

User avatar
Tim
Posts: 1205
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:19 pm
Location: Poolesville, Maryland
Contact:

Re: E3D V6

Post by Tim » Wed Jun 04, 2014 5:34 pm

Am I missing something? I guess I need instructions.

I'm not sure what you mean about not needing to switch firmware. . . The Configuration.h file is a header; once it's changed, the firmware needs to be recompiled and reloaded; I'd call that switching firmware. And I have no idea how to reload the firmware. I have always had this problem with Arduinos. I go to their website, and I get instructions for installing, and I can't find anything about how you actually connect to an Arduino board and talk to it. Their entire documentation appears to be made up of random wiki entries, randomly organized. I have yet to find an entry that says "here's how you establish a communication link to your board" or "here's how you download/upload a firmware configuration".

User avatar
jimc
Posts: 2888
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 11:30 pm
Location: mullica, nj
Contact:

Re: E3D V6

Post by jimc » Wed Jun 04, 2014 5:50 pm

You were talking about the 1/8 stepping old style firmware so what i meant was you dont need to change all that. You use the current version of your firmware you have on the machine now. You just change that to a 5 in the config h file and upload it. As for the ardunio you just need to download the ardunio software, load marlin into it, open config h, make the change and upload. As for connecting to the rambo board you just cant have s3d running and connected already. Its been awhile but i remember in the ardunio setting just pick the mega 2xxx ....i forget,2650 maybe. its the only one there like that. it connects automatically. Its been a good 6mos since i set up ardunio so jin or one of the other guys might have a step by step thats more accurate. Its fairly easy though since even i was able to pull it off :).

User avatar
Tim
Posts: 1205
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:19 pm
Location: Poolesville, Maryland
Contact:

Re: E3D V6

Post by Tim » Wed Jun 04, 2014 6:48 pm

My problem here is that this is the M2 firmware. . . THE M2 FIRMWARE. . . and I am worried that if I screw up something with the firmware upload/download, then I may brick my otherwise perfectly working M2. So when I do these things, I like to have very specific instructions that match what I'm seeing on the screen.

So first, I run the arduino main script, which brings up a window "sketch_jun04a | Arduino 1.0.5". Then it says to select my hardware from Tools->Board and my port from Tools->Serial Port. I don't get either of these under the "Tools" menu. My M2 keeps resetting as I navigate the menu, which is either a good sign or a bad sign, I'm not sure which. But at least it seems to be connected to the printer.

Then what? I tried "Open. . .", but that seemed to be looking for an Arduino sketch. So tentatively, I tried "Upload". Then it seemed to start compiling something down in the Arduino IDE path. Which failed. I have no idea what's going on. Where's the part that says "compile my modified source code" and the part that says "upload my compiled code to the Arduino board"? Also, how about the part that says "Download the current firmware" so that I have a known good working firmware setup stored away somewhere where I can retrieve it and load it back into the system, should things go horribly wrong? For every device I have overwritten the operating system of, such as my cellphone or Chromebook or TI graphing calculator, the first step is always to read back the existing configuration and store it somewhere. It's always a good feeling to know that you can always take it back to step one, if you need to.

Apparently the whole point of Arduino is to take something relatively straightforward, like building and programming a microcontroller board, and then redefine all the concepts so that people like me who have built and programmed microcontroller boards from scratch, won't recognize a single thing. I'm looking for a basic system where I take a set of C source files, compile them down with gcc or sdcc into an Atmel executable, convert to hex format and upload via JTAG. Preferably all from a terminal command line. None of that seems to be a part of the Arduino concept.

Toby
Posts: 330
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:44 pm

Re: E3D V6

Post by Toby » Wed Jun 04, 2014 7:28 pm

I managed to test modifying the M2 firmware and uploading it through the Arduino IDE not too long ago. I don't have time right now, but this evening I'll run through it again and take careful notes of the process. Unless someone who does it regularly posts a how-to before then.

I think it's pretty safe because you can always download the M2 firmware from Makergear and reload that even if you totally mess up every copy you have on your system.

User avatar
jimc
Posts: 2888
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 11:30 pm
Location: mullica, nj
Contact:

Re: E3D V6

Post by jimc » Wed Jun 04, 2014 9:02 pm

Tim, you dont download the firmware from the machine. Download it from makergear wiki, open it up with the arduino software, edit and upload. The file you open in the firmware is marlin.ino

User avatar
ednisley
Posts: 1188
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2014 5:34 pm
Location: Halfway up the Hudson
Contact:

Re: E3D V6

Post by ednisley » Wed Jun 04, 2014 9:18 pm

Tim wrote:people like me who have built and programmed microcontroller boards from scratch
See, that's your problem right there: you're too good at this stuff. [grin]

The whole Arduino edifice came about to support simple, straightforward, single-source-file programs, not the intricate collection of code required to run a 3D printer. The Arduino site caters to folks just getting their feet wet with this microcontroller stuff; JTAG is a foreign language in that context.

There's another layer of confusion, because Makergear now has (by my count) half a dozen hardware combinations in the field, each of which requires a specific firmware version. Using the wrong version can destroy the hardware, as the supply voltages have changed; in the true spirit of DIY 3D printing, some components operate far outside their design specs.

Alas, there's no user-friendly way to match any particular printer's hardware (which all looks pretty much alike) with its proper firmware, no way to verify that a particular firmware version is suited for any particular hardware, and absolutely no version control to indicate what changes happened when & where to any firmware source code that you may find.

But, assuming you can find the firmware source file collection that matches your printer hardware, it's just an Arduino sketch (admittedly, with a zillion source files) that you load (the main program is Marlin.ino) and send to the Rambo board with one click on the Upload button (the rightward pointing arrow in circle). That part, at least, they got right: load, click, and you're done.

The Arduino mindset regards the microcontroller's program memory as write-only: you always have a copy of the program you just loaded sitting on your PC, why would you ever need to read it back? You know and I know why, but, remember, Arduinos were intended for little more than blinking LEDs and maybe running a servo motor in an art project, not parsing G-Code into the real-time calculations that drive four steppers at once. The stuffing has been leaking out of this particular critter for quite some time.

You must tell the IDE which "serial" port (if you're using Windows, good luck with that) and which microcontroller to expect on the other end of the cable (the Rambo board has Mega 2560), but you'd expect to do that with any development system. The M2 will blink when you select different ports, because the USB subsystem goes through a whole reset-and-enumerate sequence each time; the M2 is way out at the far end of that particular dog.

Fortunately, it's pretty much impossible to brick a Rambo and, if you do, you'll get to use that JTAG interface with all the incantations that only a hardcore firmware developer could love. [grin]

Anyhow, I think you get the idea: you're expecting too much. Relax and love the shambles...

Post Reply