Printrbot Talk Forum

by **mreiben** » 2012-Jun-Thu-20-Jun

I have been searching for two days to try to fix this and I hope that a few people here might have an answer. I am using a printrboard on a prusa mendel build, and all of the hardware is connected and ready to go, but I can't seem to make the next easy step of connecting the printer to my computer.

I have installed pronterface on windows, osx and ubuntu, and in each environment I have been unable to connect to my printer. On windows only "com3" shows up as a port, but it wont connect at any baud rate. On the mac tty.usbmodem12341 is an option, but it also will not connect at any baud rate.

The "getting started" documentation seems to suggest that downloading pronterface and slic3r should boot right up, but I have been struggling. Any advice?

Thanks!

**Sponsor**

by **pocketscience** » 2012-Jun-Thu-22-Jun

Assuming you've checked all the obvious stuff like 12V power to the board (green LED is on) it sounds like it might be a HW fault.

G.

by **ecnelutalf** » 2012-Jun-Thu-22-Jun

At least for windows have you installed the necessary file: http://pjrc.com/teensy/serial_install.exe
Be sure to install as administrator.

Also, I have found that I need to boot up in the following order.
1.) Turn on power supply first
2.) Plug into computer
3.) Open Pronterface

Any deviation will leave me with the connecting message....

Hope this helps

by **pocketscience** » 2012-Jun-Thu-23-Jun

There's nothing extra to install for Mac (that's what I'm using), so the fact he sees the same issue on all platforms suggests something more than installing the FTDI drivers for Windows - although it's a good point to confirm. On my Mac I don't have to follow any set procedure to connect to my board and overall the Printrboard/pronterface connectivity seems pretty stable.

G.

by **ecnelutalf** » 2012-Jun-Thu-23-Jun

Try this. Disconnect and turn off power. Then unplug your Y-end stop. Then try connecting.

by **scantrontb** » 2012-Jun-Fri-03-Jun

by **monstermark** » 2012-Jun-Fri-06-Jun

I have the same issue. If my y-axis is not at 'home' then I cannot connect. It made me crazy until I finally figured out it was the end-stop causing the issue.

by **jr57k** » 2012-Jun-Fri-07-Jun

2 points

1) the printrboard doesn't use the FTDI USB to serial chip like most other older arduino based solutions. It uses a different ATMEL chip for the main processor that doesn't rerquire this intermediate chipset but instead has a VCP built in. Based on your comment about COM3 I'm guessing you hadn't loaded the proper driver per the instructions page on printrbot.com. Once you do that another serial port should present itself, usually something higher than COM4 (mine is 14 for example). It's a much better solution with fewer errors and better stability. BTW 115200 is what you should be aiming for on the connection speed.

2) while not directly related to your problem of connecting, I have had to unplug the board and plug it back in (do this at the computer end please to avoid breaking the micro USB connector on the board itself) when I abort a print by turning the power supply off and back on again. The board when it reboots doesn't like to talk through the stale connection that was present before the power cycle. I thought I'd mention it because it's a little nagging thing that may be tripping some people up.

by **pocketscience** » 2012-Jun-Fri-08-Jun

by **monstermark** » 2012-Jun-Fri-10-Jun

by **mreiben** » 2012-Jun-Fri-13-Jun

I have rev. c, and according to the seller it is tested with merlin firmware pre-installed. Could a firmware problem be causing this?

Thanks for the replies so far, as soon as I get home I will check the drivers that I installed, do a calculated power-reboot cycle, and try disconnecting the y-axis endstop.

by **monstermark** » 2012-Jun-Fri-13-Jun

I have a rev b and rev c board.

Funny thing is this same thing happens on the rev c board.

Try this;

before you power on the power supply or connect the USB to your computer make sure the y-axis is at home.

Next turn on the power supply.

Then connect the usb.

Now click the connect in pronterface.

You should connect just fine.

The limit switch is n/c (normally closed) when it is not depressed, I have a belief that this is causing an issue with the board. There are others with rev c and the same issue.

I have just learned to live with it since it only bugs me when I forget to home the axis before I connect.

Good luck.

by **ecnelutalf** » 2012-Jun-Fri-13-Jun

I have a rev C board too. I also have the problem that I cannot disconnect the USB port during an SD print or I lose power to the board.

I PM'ed Laine about it and he said it may be the version of the firmware put on it. His works fine, but the vendor may have inadvertently used a slightly larger firmware install that exceeds the space capacity of the board. Some of the code would be left out, not enough to make it not work, but will create problems.

by **scantrontb** » 2012-Jun-Fri-14-Jun

by **lwalkera** » 2012-Jun-Fri-15-Jun

All of the rev C boards were made without a review from me. As far as I know, all the rev C boards (which were all made for people other than Printrbot) were all loaded with the LUFA CDC bootloader instead of the Atmel factory-programed FLIP bootloader. The LUFA bootloader is limited to only 64k of code space because of the protocol they chose.

With SD support enabled, Marlin can get close to or exceed 64k depending on the other features that are enabled and the version of gcc it was compiled with. If you have an AVR ICSP cable, I'd try reloading the stock bootloader from here http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod ... -1-0-1.zip and reflashing Marlin with the FLIP software from Atmel.

by **pocketscience** » 2012-Jun-Fri-19-Jun

by **jr57k** » 2012-Jun-Fri-22-Jun

As for the PC thing, it's odd because I've got like 9 computers at home, 5 macs, 4 Win7 machines. For some reason although I'm a mac guy and I program on one at work all day I've only printed from the PCs.

As for the crappy responses..... Welcome to printrbottalk.com! :roll:

by **scantrontb** » 2012-Jun-Sun-04-Jun

by **jr57k** » 2012-Jun-Sun-08-Jun

You can get a programmer at sparkfun.com. I think it's just a USB serial (FTDI) to TTL with the correct cable. Ive got two ina box somewhere. Just make sure you get the correct voltage (3.3V or 5V I can't remember.....)

Did you buy your board from printrbot.com?

by **lwalkera** » 2012-Jun-Mon-15-Jun

by **bitswype** » 2012-Jun-Wed-20-Jun

Has anyone contacted brook to let him know of this problem so that others don't get stuck with the crippled boot loader?

by **jr57k** » 2012-Jun-Wed-21-Jun

by **lwalkera** » 2012-Jun-Thu-04-Jun

by **doctek** » 2012-Jun-Thu-14-Jun

Here is a bit from my notes on bringing up Printrboard (running for over 7 weeks now, we have 5 running).

Marlin firmware is installed as described by lincomatic here: lincomatic blog

I used FLIP from Atmel as described on the Printrboard Reprap Site to load Marlin.

Other than fixing motor directions, calibration, end stop sense, etc., the only real problem I had was that Printrboard would hang on booting if the Y-axis was homed. I believe this is due to the fact that Printrboard uses the /SS pin to read the Y end stop. If SDCard use is enabled and this pin is asserted, then the SPI port will not be readable and the initial SD read will hang - at least I think that's what's happening. So I moved the Y end stop to the pin for the E stop (which is not enabled by default). Doing this solved the problem with hanging on reset and the board works fine.

HTH

by **scantrontb** » 2012-Jun-Fri-21-Jun

by **doctek** » 2012-Jun-Fri-22-Jun

Great questions! Obviously, I should have been clearer.

When I say I moved the Y end stop to the E stop pin, I mean that I not only moved the connector (which would be the same as disabling it), but I modified the code in Pins.h to recognize the Y end stop on the pin formerly associated with the E stop. The result is that the Y end stop signal is now recognized on the pin formerly reserved for the E stop input.

For more info on the /SS pin and why it shouldn't be used as an input if you plan to use the SPI port, have a look at the Atmel data sheet for the 90USB1286. In fact, I think that any Atmel AVR that has an SPI requires that the /SS pin not be used as an input except as an SPI /SS control signal.

Hopefully this explanation makes things clearer.

by **plexus** » 2013-Apr-Sun-15-Apr

by **EpicFail** » 2013-Apr-Tue-21-Apr

I was just looking for something like this. it happened after I tried updating marlin, then coming back to the standard builld * though i did turn on Advance K*

by **bpgoss1** » 2013-May-Mon-05-May

finished assembling and no activity from the printer. I've installed pronterface and attempted to connect Pronterface simply says connecting forever. I have tried ensuring that all axis's are set to home. Perhaps the following proterface error log file information will prove useful:

Exception in thread Thread-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "threading.pyc", line 532, in __bootstrap_inner
File "threading.pyc", line 484, in run
File "printcore.pyc", line 97, in _listen
File "io.pyc", line 520, in readline
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 212, in read
ValueError: Attempting to use a port that is not open

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pronterface.py", line 1566, in connect
File "printcore.pyc", line 76, in connect
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 30, in __init__
File "serial\serialutil.pyc", line 260, in __init__
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 56, in open
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port COM3: [Error 121] The semaphore timeout period has expired.
Exception in thread Thread-3:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "threading.pyc", line 532, in __bootstrap_inner
File "threading.pyc", line 484, in run
File "printcore.pyc", line 97, in _listen
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'readline'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pronterface.py", line 1566, in connect
File "printcore.pyc", line 76, in connect
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 30, in __init__
File "serial\serialutil.pyc", line 260, in __init__
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 56, in open
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port COM3: [Error 121] The semaphore timeout period has expired.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pronterface.py", line 1566, in connect
File "printcore.pyc", line 76, in connect
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 30, in __init__
File "serial\serialutil.pyc", line 260, in __init__
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 56, in open
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port COM3: [Error 121] The semaphore timeout period has expired.
Exception in thread Thread-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "threading.pyc", line 532, in __bootstrap_inner
File "threading.pyc", line 484, in run
File "printcore.pyc", line 97, in _listen
File "io.pyc", line 520, in readline
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 212, in read
ValueError: Attempting to use a port that is not open

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pronterface.py", line 1566, in connect
File "printcore.pyc", line 76, in connect
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 30, in __init__
File "serial\serialutil.pyc", line 260, in __init__
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 56, in open
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port COM3: [Error 121] The semaphore timeout period has expired.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pronterface.py", line 1566, in connect
File "printcore.pyc", line 76, in connect
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 30, in __init__
File "serial\serialutil.pyc", line 260, in __init__
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 56, in open
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port COM3: [Error 121] The semaphore timeout period has expired.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pronterface.py", line 1566, in connect
File "printcore.pyc", line 76, in connect
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 30, in __init__
File "serial\serialutil.pyc", line 260, in __init__
File "serial\serialwin32.pyc", line 56, in open
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port COM3: [Error 121] The semaphore timeout period has expired.

Any help?

by **RetireeJay** » 2013-May-Mon-10-May

I think that the discussion in this thread is oriented to people who want to modify their firmware on the Printrboard.

If you have a stock Printrboard from Printrbot, and you are not trying to re-flash the firmware, then your problem is probably much simpler.

Look at my post in this thread about installing the USB Serial Driver and see if it helps. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3356&p=22269&hilit=did+you+install+the+usb+driver#p22268

by **Richy_T** » 2013-Jul-Tue-22-Jul

by **ggutshal** » 2013-Oct-Fri-07-Oct

I'm sorry I'm a bit confused here. I just purchased a Simple kit. I've assembled it and got the Windows driver installed. When I plug the printer in, a new COM port appears. When I click connect, it turns green. When I go to the manual control tab in Repetier, it says "6 Command Waiting". When I click any of the arrow buttons it just increases the number in the "Command Waiting" message. Both the X & Y axises are against the switch. Reading through this thread it sounds like I have to re-flash the board. Is that correct? Sorry if I'm being dense.

by **RetireeJay** » 2013-Oct-Fri-08-Oct

No, you shouldn't have to re-flash the board.

On the right-hand side of the Repetier screen, there is an "OK" button (you may have to scroll down to see it). Some people find that they need to click on that button to get their connection going (although for some reason I never have to).

The other potential hang-up involves the serial communication. See this post: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4280#p28089

by **ggutshal** » 2013-Oct-Fri-10-Oct

I got that squared away now. I am using the latest version of repetier and there was a setting that needed changed (for the life of me I can't find the thread that clued me in).

by **jwatte** » 2013-Nov-Sat-13-Nov

by **k4rqz** » 2013-Dec-Wed-00-Dec

my assembled Printrbot Plus arrived today 12/10/2013 and I had the same problem with a Win7 machine. I had to go to "Manual Control" tab and "Debug Options" box there's an OK button. After hitting that, commands are sent, and everything is fine. I'm using Repetier-Host V0.90C

by **holmes4** » 2014-Jan-Wed-21-Jan

by **RetireeJay** » 2014-Jan-Wed-21-Jan

by **BoingBoing11** » 2014-Jan-Fri-13-Jan

I had that problem too. i went to Printer Settings in Repetier Host, and set the opening handshake from low>high>low to disabled. Fixed the problem for me, hope that's helpful!

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