Print from SD card / Makerbot Rep 2

[Fozzie]

I am new to Simplify3D Creator and stumped. I can print to my Replicator 2 successfully via the USB cable, but if I try to use the X3G file written to an SD card, it never works. The head moves to a random place and just stops and does nothing. (I saw the post about long file names, but I am using "test.x3g" so that shouldn't be it.) When I "prepare" the object for printing, I have both the gcode and x3g code being written directly to my SD card.

[Fozzie]

Taking advice from another forum, instead of writing directly to the SD card from S3D Creator, I wrote to my HDD and then copied the file onto the SD card. This appears to have solved the problem as the resulting file worked just fine. Odd, as I have always written directly to the SD card from Makerware without problems.

[jimc]

fozzie thats a pretty good thread going over on the makerbot forum. i posted over there concerning you blob issue.

[Fozzie]

fozzie thats a pretty good thread going over on the makerbot forum. i posted over there concerning you blob issue.

Your suggestion of turning on "coasting" helped a lot. Thanks!

[Fozzie]

Actually, this did NOT solve my problem. It did up my success rate, but getting something to print is still very hit-and-miss. Since I am using the same SD cards with 100% success from Makerware, I don't think it is the SD cards themselves that are the problem.

What happens is that the print will begin by moving the extruder to the near left corner. It will spurt out a blob of plastic and then move to the general area I told it to build on. Then it will just sit there. There is no status on the LCD panel, it simply shows the file list. The extruder will sit there, hot, fan spinning, and slowly leaking plastic until I either shut the bot down or start another print.

I like S3D Creator a lot, but am frustrated that I can't get consistent behavior from it. I am willing to concede that is may be something on my end, but since I have a 100% success rate doing essentially the same thing from Makerware, I have no idea what that might be.

[jimc]

foz, have you emailed support on it? the forum isnt really monitored by s3d too much. its just for the users and since there arent a ton of guys here with makerbots you will get far faster and better service by sending a support email to s3d. dont get frustrated, they are usually quick to reply and can help you far more than the rest of us. plus if there is a quirky bug then they wont know to fix it on the next release if you dont give them a shout.

[Fozzie]

Thanks for the heads up, Jimc. I will give that a shot. I'm VERY new to S3D and thought they monitored this forum.

[Zacman2]

I too am having problems with printing from the sd card on a makerbot replicator 2. I generated the .x3g, copied the file to the sd card by putting it in a computer, and then put the card back in the makerbot. After starting the print, it warms up, prints a blob in the corner, and begins to print one line of plastic around the outside edge of my model. It then stops and will not continue. The menu on makerbot LCD just displays the list of files from the card at this point. I have not yet tried printing directly from simplify3d via usb. In addition, I tried to import the gcode file into makerware, and this fails as well with an error about g90 absolute positioning. Have you been able to resolve this issue? This is using the newest makerbot firmware, and the newest s3d version for windows.

[davidbarwin]

Was this ever solved? I'm running into the same exact issue with .x3g files generated from S3D and copied to an SD card on all of the Replicator 2's I try it on (we have five).

Kind Regards,

-David Barwin

[davidbarwin]

An update on what I'm seeing as this appears to be intermittent….. You can tell if it's going to work by watching the LCD panel after selecting a x3g file. If you get the directory listing of the SD card while the extruder is warming up then it will fail/pause immediately upon starting the job. If on the other hand you get the standard job name, elapsed time and extruder temp then the job will continue successfully. I had it fail and immediately selected it again and it worked the second time. -David