Printrbot Talk Forum

by **plexus** » 2012-Nov-Thu-00-Nov

as you might know from my ongoing problem with USB printing, and largely ignored by Apple and Printrbot, as discussed here, its a PITA. so i got one of these. look just in front of the coupler. why on earth is that micro-SD slot on the back? thats a worse design than CL1's printrboard mounting scheme. LOL it works great. plugs into the microSD slot on the other end. its a little thicker than a card so I had give it a bit more pressure to get in there. i pushed on the opposite side of the slot to help prevent breaking it off. that worked fine. it takes a regular SD card and doesn't seem to work with a microSD card adaptor. that's fine. having the slot on the front and using the larger cards is great.

**Sponsor**

by **BigBoxDriver** » 2012-Nov-Fri-01-Nov

Plexus,

good catch -- the design of the SD in the back is even worse when you have a boxed version of the stuff -- Like I have.

At the moment I've not yet used the SD printing, due to that fact. Your little gadget/add-on at least brings me to this area to re-consider.

On the picture you've also a solution I started to discuss here a while back: ALU-printbed. I'll follow up on that in the other thread from you. Hope to have my version / solution for that in a couple of days ..

thanks for all your effort & sharing

peter

by **roman.hegglin** » 2012-Nov-Fri-05-Nov

Why do you need access to the micro-SD card?
Don't you just copy the files from the computer via USB to the SD card?

Or do I miss something?

by **BigBoxDriver** » 2012-Nov-Fri-06-Nov

Roman,

the SD-Slot is "behind" the PrintrBot. I've a "Boxed" Printrbot, means it's in an enclosure. Gaining access to the SD (if Mini or not does not matter) would force me to move the Printrbot

either
a) out of the enclosure
or
b) turn the enclosure completely around, remove the back cover (which is, due to the heat chamber, somewhat closed) and then add the card.

So at the moment. No, I don't simply copy the stuff via USB to the SD Card. I simply use the USB-Cable connected to the Printrbot to print.

There is a slight advantage if you have a SD card in the slot and then simply copy the files to the card and then print from there ... but to be honest: If I already need that USB connection, why should I then go through the hazzle of transfer etc?

SD single is a difference, at least for me.

regards

peter

by **roman.hegglin** » 2012-Nov-Fri-07-Nov

BigBoxDriver wrote:There is a slight advantage if you have a SD card in the slot and then simply copy the files to the card and then print from there ... but to be honest: If I already need that USB connection, why should I then go through the hazzle of transfer etc?

Do you have modified the printrboard with a display and some control keys or how do you print without a connection to the pc?

I understand that is is difficult to insert a SD card but once it is in, you don't have to move it out.
As far as I see, I cannot print without computer. I have once copied a gcode file to the printer and let it print alone, because I wanted replace my computer.

Gruss
roman

by **plexus** » 2012-Nov-Fri-10-Nov

It takes an unreasonably long time to move files to the SD card via USB on my system. So long in fact its not viable. so i have to move the card from computer to printer all the time.

although having a fully functioning system would be nice I do find printing from SD card has the benefit of allowing the laptop to be removed once the print has started.

I really wish Apple, printrbot or whoever would address the USB issue however. no one seems to want to fix it. i guess if its broken for a few people thats ok. one reason i have my eye on getting a different printer that works.

by **lwalkera** » 2012-Nov-Fri-13-Nov

It's hard to fix something that you can't reproduce. FWIW, I'm ordering a USB protocol analyzer in the hopes that I can reproduce the issue you're seeing on some of the computers at PBHQ. Just because you haven't heard anything, doesn't mean work isn't being done.

The reason the SD card slot is where it is, is that there was no other place on the board for it to go and still have no parts on the bottom of the board.

I was planning on modifying the firmware so that you could use it as a USB mass-storage/CDC Serial composite device, but haven't gotten around to it in depth yet. Just running the mass-storage code alone I was able to get about 500 kb/s transfer speed to the SD card.

by **sandworm** » 2013-Jun-Fri-18-Jun

Hey Plexus, I ordered this exact extender for my bot since I print with the SD slot due to the fact that I'm running on Mac. Unfortunately, it never seems to be able to mount the card. I'm not using a micro adapter, just a normal SD card. Did you encounter anything like this?

Also, I'd like to toss in my experience of the USB to SD card copy operation taking ridiculously long, so I have to swap the card in and out as well.

by **theshort** » 2013-Sep-Sat-08-Sep

sandworm, did you ever get this to work? I ordered one and had the same problem. I can get it to mount on my laptop but not in the printrboard. Very frustrating pulling and putting micro sd in and out in the back of the printer. Tried just running prints from laptop but it likes to freeze and stop prints.

by **sandworm** » 2013-Sep-Sat-09-Sep

I never did get this to work. I read somewhere that the sd card had to be <8gb, but I didn't have one that small. I actually ended up using a spare windows notebook as a dedicated controller. Works better than my mac, I'm sorry to report.

In any case, I'd love to hear if it works with a smaller card.

by **REPRAP SQUAD** » 2013-Sep-Sat-11-Sep

I also recently bought a netbook to use as a dedicated printing and design computer which has built in sd card reader and it saves me the hassle of sd card printing. Plus I can do a lot mote with it and I payed 60 which is less than buying and lcd setup. I just looked around for a couple weeks for a good deal and found one on a dell inspiron that was less than a yr old.

by **theshort** » 2013-Sep-Mon-11-Sep

I'll try an 8g, and report, before I send it back. If not I am going to pursue my RPi with OctoPi. Had it working before my wifi dongle went poop. I was actually able to upload to micro-sd faster through OctoPi on RPi then direct connection from laptop to printrboard, go figure!!

by **vdubskey** » 2013-Sep-Mon-12-Sep

I've been using one of these as well. I have a original plastic printrbot plus size and hated reaching around the back feeling for the SD slot. I purchased this one from eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Universal-Micro ... 1027486185

It still uses micro SD, not regular like yours. My only complaint is because its thicker then I normal card, it doesn't stay seated without help. I had to zip tie it to a bracket I printed.

I don't use it anymore now that I mounted my printrboard between the threaded rods on the base of the printer. I mounted it upside down and SD card towards the front. I printed a front cover piece that hides everything in the front except a slot for the USB and SD. I mounted the printrboard upside down so I can still flip the bot over to get to the printrboard if something goes wrong.

by **theshort** » 2013-Sep-Tue-15-Sep

Gave it a go last night. I tried three cards, one 8g and two 2g. Didn't work, the card reader is going back.

by **Lemm** » 2013-Sep-Wed-06-Sep

theshort wrote:Gave it a go last night. I tried three cards, one 8g and two 2g. Didn't work, the card reader is going back.

How do you try to initialize the sd card ?

by **Nickies08** » 2013-Sep-Wed-06-Sep

I just ordered the SD to MicroSD extension cable from amazon:

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B00ALN51AK ... X110_SY165

I have a few regular SD cards already and they fit directly into my laptop. I'll see how it works out

by **theshort** » 2013-Sep-Wed-10-Sep

Nickies08 wrote:I just ordered the SD to MicroSD extension cable from amazon:
I have a few regular SD cards already and they fit directly into my laptop. I'll see how it works out

Thats the same one I am sending back. It did not work with my LCV2.

by **Nickies08** » 2013-Sep-Wed-13-Sep

Well that isn't good. Guess I should have paid better attention to the model you had listed.

by **theshort** » 2013-Sep-Thu-09-Sep

Sorry, I didn't list a model. You can't help people out if you leave out information! :oops:

by **Nickies08** » 2013-Sep-Thu-10-Sep

No big deal, maybe it was a faulty one. If the one I get doesn't work then we all know what model to avoid. Maybe it is a problem with that manufacturer or the type of adapter. Maybe it has to be micro SD to Micro SD. These are answers we will find out!

by **andersonmatt1125** » 2013-Nov-Wed-14-Nov

This posting was originally talking about how I ordered the one from Plexus's link and got it to work. Unfortunately, It was only able to finish one print. Now it will randomly quit halfway through. Also, the cable they sent me was a microSD to microSD, not to regular sized SD like the description said.

by **WTF** » 2013-Dec-Wed-21-Dec

I'm trying to do this too. I have a Simple with the tall tower mod and the back piece completely covers access to the microSD. I got a Micro-to-regular SD adapter but can't get the Simple to see the SD card when it's plugged in. I moved a bunch of sliced files from the original micro-SD I was using before adding the tall tower to the new 8GB normal SD card but it doesn't read anything - very frustrating. Do I need the LCD panel for this to work? Any help would be appreciated!

by **luotinen** » 2014-Feb-Mon-04-Feb

I also bought a microsd-sd extension cable and I can confirm it does not work with Printrbot Simple v3 (2013). It works normally with computers so it is not a problem with the cable. The cable feels very loose when connected to the Printrbot and it is difficult to tell if it is firmly in place. Micro SD cards lock in when placed correctly.

Using Repertier Host I get SD Init Fail error when trying via the cable. If I plug a micro sd card directly (and upload via USB, things work normally. Saving on the micro sd via SD adapter also works normally. Just keep to MSDOS names (12345678.123 characters max) with low ascii characters (e.g. myprint.g)

I used FAT32 formatting and several cards (1 GB, 2 GB and 3 GB) for testing.

by **Munson** » 2014-Mar-Fri-21-Mar

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:256320/#files .Click on this link to thingiverse for a micro sd extension I designed.You will need to cut a hole in the back of the tower.

by **rho-wan** » 2014-Jun-Tue-17-Jun

I wanted to use SD cards with the LC with a micro-to-normal adapter but it doesn't work.
Has anyone found out whether it depends on the cable or on the printrboard?

by **pefferie** » 2014-Oct-Mon-13-Oct

As reported by rho-wan himself on a different thread, the reason some micro-SD to SD converters do not work is because of the extra resistor which does not prevent the cable from working in a PC, but makes it unusable on a Printrbot. Unsoldering the resistor solved the issue for me and I was able to connect both an SD card and a micro-SD with an adapter. My cable had two components soldered to it, the one to remove (supposedly a resistor) is located farther from the edge and is the smaller of the two.

by **diwatsuki** » 2015-Jul-Mon-11-Jul

I am trying to fix a similar problem with a cable and posted a question to rho-wan's other thread re: function of that resistor. My concern is whether removing it can lead to data corruption.

- david i
Printrbot Simple Metal, Rev D board