Printing insanely slowly with Printrbot+ about repetier-firmware

[czyz]

BTW, Repetier looks awesome, please don't take my post as criticism. I figure I must be running into some kind of edge case, and it could likely be of my own doing --although I don't think I altered the defaults in ways not dictated in the quick start document.

In an attempt to be more helpful, here's a link to download my Repetier and Slic3r settings:
http://zachfine.com/repetier_n_slicer_settings_090212.zip

I upload those settings not with any expectation that they will be downloaded, but just on the off chance that someone will have a hunch and would find useful info in those settings for double-checking. I've also uploaded screenshots of my Repetier settings here:
http://skitch.com/zachfine/etgea/repetier-host-mac-0.31
http://skitch.com/zachfine/etge4/repetier-host-mac-0.31-1
http://skitch.com/zachfine/etgeh/repetier-host-mac-0.31

The model I'm printing is the Black Dynamite bust from Thingiverse, found here:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:27832

In any case, there's definitely something wrong. I could watch the printhead go around the perimeter of Black Dynamite's head and it's so slow I could almost use it as the second-hand of a clock if it sped up a bit, even though my Slic3r settings are for 180mm/sec perimeters.

[repetier]

You are confusing me a bit. You are using Marlin and ask a Host question about Version 1.0 which does not exist. From your second post I guess you are using the Mac-Host in version 0.31. In that version is a bug if you use Slic3r with mutiple slicers for coloring perimenter/infill/support. This bug causes the host to get slower with each layer printed. This is fixed in the upcoming version coming soon. You can solve this by using only one extruder at the moment.

You can test this by setting port to virtual printer. If it still gets so slow, the error is still there.

[czyz]

Ah. The reason I called it v1.0 is that this is how Repetier-Host Mac identifies itself in the 'About RepetierHost' window:
https://skitch.com/zachfine/ete2p/repetier-host-mac

That does sound like it's likely the bug I've run into. I only have one extruder, so am not sure how to solve it.

[repetier]

Have you tried sending it only to the virtual port? Is it as slowly as with a real printer?
What should help in this case is disableing the filament visualization, e.g. if you add
@hide in the start code.
I'm testing the next release where this bug a talked about is solved. Should come in the next days, in case it helps your problem.

[czyz]

I just tried sending it to the virtual port. It goes much much faster than with the real printer. The whole virtual print finished in 27 seconds, though it did visibly slow down as the print progressed. I tried the virtual print with @hide in the gcode, and it correctly didn't update the filament display while printing but the virtual print took the same amount of total time and the field that displayed which line was printing seemed to progress more slowly as the print wore on.

I should perhaps mention one other (unrelated) possible bug I ran into. I tried setting the 3D display to use VBO, and it displayed a garble of triangles. My GPU is an ATI Radeon HD 6870 1GB, which I'd expect would be sufficient to hold the textures, but maybe it's an unsupported card. I switched back to 'Automatic' and all was well.

Repetier-Mac seems great. I look forward to trying the next release. If the print slowdown issue is nixed I'll undoubtedly be switching over to using this application to run my printrbot+.

[repetier]

From what I hear you shouldn't have problems doing real print. If you can send a 6.5 hour print in 27 seconds there is no speed restriction on the host side. So the big question is what is slowing transfer if it is not the host directly. Is there a size needed to get a slowdown? What I mean is the slicer is the original slic3r and the host does not change the lines send to the printer and you verified yourself that the host doesn't slow down enough with that amount of data for your problem. So why should the print be slower and why only for your version, while other user have no problems (as far as I know)?

With the graphic bug I will check myself. Automatic is VBO and I'm using the ATI Radeon with 1GB myself, but never played with that setting.

[czyz]

The problem wasn't that transfer was slowing down, but that the print speed was slowing down. The movement of the print head was incrementally slower for every line, and towards the time I cancelled the print, it was moving incredibly slowly. Not a usb transfer problem. Since the same gcode worked just fine from pronterface, maybe errant M220 commands were being inserted?

In any case, I just tried out the newest version of repetier-host and it seemed to print just fine. And the visualization is terrific. A minor suggestion: if there's a flag to have opengl perform antialiasing, it might be worth trying. Those filament patterns are perfect for generating moire patterns.

Thanks again for developing this application.

[czyz]

BTW, whatever you did to alter the graphics code did the job (assuming there was a fix). I'm set to "Use VBO's (fastest)" now and it looks great. Enabling antialiasing would be the frosting on the cake, to use an underutilized idiom.

One more note --It would be helpful (and more mac-app-like) if the "Repetier-Host Mac -> About RepetierHost" dialogue displayed the actual version number. It currently just reports "Version 1.0 (1)", which might not be specific enough to be useful info when added to bug reports. (screenshot: https://skitch.com/zachfine/eadxa/repetier-host-mac).

In any case, I'm super-happy to be using this app now.

[repetier]

Which version are you using? Since including Sparkle for automatic updates I enter the correct version number and it also displays this version on my mac. Current version 0.40, btw.

[czyz]

I don't actually know how to tell which version I'm using as it just reports "Version 1.0 (1)" via the method I know to tell the version number of a mac application, that's the issue. It also says 'Version 1.0" when I do a 'get info' on the Application from the Finder:
https://skitch.com/zachfine/eaff2/repetier-host-mac-info

Maybe the created and modified dates shown in that screenshot, or the file size, will help determine which version?

Perhaps there's a command-line executable within the Repetier-host application bundle that I can run with a "--version" flag in order to get the actual version number for the application?

[repetier]

To get the version look at the main window. Its written in the window title.