USB Vz SD Card

[stiandahl]

Hey Everyone!

I'm a very! noob at 3D printing, and I have a question. (Probably a lot, but I start with this one )

I'm wondering what you guys are using as print medium. I'v been trying to print over USB and with the SD Card. It seems to me that USB printing has a higher failure risk. Is this correct or is it just a coincident? I see in the communication window that USB printing send's one by one command. Is it possible that if I use my computer to do other (heavy) operations, it can stop the transmission off commands temporary and make the print fail?

Thanks in advance.

Stian

[Ret]

USB has a higher risk of failure but in the 3 years of USB printing on one of my printers, I've never had one issue. As long as your PC doesn't go to sleep, shut off, or get bogged down too much, you shouldn't have any problems. If you have multiple printers going at once, you'll of course want to use SD or wifi.

[airscapes]

It is not USB it is window.. using Octoprint with a Raspberry pi works flawlessly connected via USB
This is a little more complicated than what you are using and you already have a large learning curve.. I would try and have your PC doing NOTHING other than printing when printing. You may also want to bump the priority of S3D . If you still have issues look into octoprint or just use your SD card..

[stiandahl]

Thanks for info.

I was wondering about Octoprint. Have like 20 Raspberry's laying around. Would be great to make use of one lol. Is it possible to print directly from S3D to the raspberry? And will it be possible to use the integrated machine control panel in S3D?

Anyway. Thanks again.
SD

[airscapes]

The work flow with octoprint is
Slice with s3d
save to local disk on your pc.
Ocotprint provides a browser interface over network
From Octoprint interface upload file from PC, print..
OP has control interface to set temp, change filament and enter gcode same as S3D.
If you have the skills set it up. Mine is hardwired as 3b+ pi had wireless issues.
Also have a usb keyboard/mouse and monitor connected to the pi for use next to the printer.
So you can monitor and control your printer from any device on your network via the browser gui of OP.
Worth the effort and sounds like you have the needed parts and skills

[Impalanator]

As previously mentioned, using an SD Card is more reliable than using a USB cable connected to a PC. If anything goes wrong with the PC during the print, then the print will fail. It's a real bummer to have a model 90% complete into a 6 day print and have a PC issue cause it to fail.

A (somewhat) exception to this is Octoprint with a Pi. I have used Octoprint but don't use it regularly. I mostly use the SD card because raspberry Pi's can add an additional unnecessary failure point as well although many people find they are more reliable than PCs. The trade off is Octoprint actually has some recovery features built into it. An example is if the power goes out, Octoprint can recover your print job where it left off where using the SD card would result in a failed print.

Another bit of information if using an SD card a few things to look into:
1. many printers like lower sized cards that are less than 8GB which is actually hard to find these days
2. consider re-formatting your SD card every time before you save a new print on there. I got into a habit of doing this. This fixes an issue where many printers both high end and low end will stop printing like the job is complete when it's not, causing the print to fail. This also happens with high end SD cards.
3. I have over 3,000 prints on my printer and twice I've had re-solder a new SD card slot on my board because it has failed for using it so many times, so that is something to consider and look out for.

[stiandahl]

Thanks again for input.

I have got OctoPi up and running, and it works perfectly. I'v played around with it and found the Gcode tab on the Octo, where you can run Gcode scripts (before/after++ print) As far as I understand, I don't need to fill in anything there, as long as I have the before/after scripts in 3DS? Is that correct?

SD

[airscapes]

Yes, all your slicing is done in S3d and you just run your code with OP. OP can slice using cura but never have I bothered since it is on a pi and I don't like cura.