The latest version of ReplicatorG, 0013, is now available for download. This release adds a bit of functionality to the firmware uploader:
- The uploader now contacts our servers to see if new firmware releases are available at startup. If they are, it will download them and give you a reminder that a new firmware version is available for your board.
- The uploader now autoresets your extruder board, so you’ll no longer have to hit the reset button manually when you update your extruder controller’s firmware. (It can also autoreset your motherboard, too, but you’ll need to make a simple modification. See our wiki page on enabling auto-reset on the motherboard for details.
If you’re new to the firmware updater, don’t worry; we’ve written all-new documentation describing how to get firmware on to your boards from ReplicatorG.
Hopefully this functionality allow us to get firmware fixes to you as quickly as possible, and make it easier than ever for you to get the latest firmware on your bots. Happy hacking!
Some folks have been having difficulty changing the lookup table the extruder uses to interpret the temperature data generated by the thermistor. Tweaking the settings has traditionally been a laborious, multi-step process. I’ve whipped up a new version of ReplicatorG and the extruder firmware to simplify thermistor tuning.
There’s a new page on the wiki that discusses how to adjust the thermistor settings, and gives some reasonable values to start with.
As always, you can find links to the latest version at: http://replicat.org/download
Remember to leave a comment or open an issue in GitHub if you run into any problems!
Martijn Elserman and Widget independently came across a very, very, very nasty bug in ReplicatorG that can lead to data loss. I’ve put up a new release of ReplicatorG that corrects the problem. You can find releases for all platforms here:
http://replicat.org/download
Please update asap, and as usual open an issue on github or leave a comment if you encounter any problems.
ReplicatorG 0010 is now available. It’s a fairly small update this time. The most useful feature introduced in this release is illustrated by the icon shown above: build to file! In earlier versions, if you needed to upload a large build to an SD card, it could take up to half an hour to move the data over the serial connection. Now, if you have an SD card adapter for your computer, you can put a build on an SD card in seconds. Just mount your SD card on your host computer, click the “build to file” button, and save the .s3g file in the top-level directory of your FAT-formatted SD card. Then just pop the card back into your makerbot and click the “build from SD card” button, and away you go!
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It’s release time again– ReplicatorG 0009 and the new v1.6 firmware are now available! As before, the new firmware is bundled with the ReplicatorG uploader.
The currently recommended version of skeinforge is the 0005 release:
Changelogs are after the cut. As usual, let me know about any problems you encounter.
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One of the problems we’ve had for a while with the Gen3 extruder firmware is the naive temperature control algorithm. Since the firmware had been simply turning the heater on or off depending on whatever temperature it was seeing at the thermistor at the moment, we’d often end up with wild temperature swings, with the temperature at the nozzle overshooting by as much as 20° C. Implementing proper PID control has always been pretty high on the list of things to do.
Yesterday, Tim at BotHacker coded up a patch which implements PID on the heater. The result is much, much better temperature control, yielding a smoother extrusion and less finicky extruder. The patch has been applied to the svn repository, so you’ll see the results in the v1.6 firmware*, coming later this week.
One of the great things about an open source project like this is that lots of features that might otherwise take a long time for a traditional project to implement are often contributed by users, or already implemented in other open source projects. For example, we recently rolled in upstream changes in Roland Riegel’s great SD/MMC card library that provided us with improved support for FAT32 and SDHC cards.
To help facilitate this sort of collaboration, I’ve created a Google group for discussing firmware development. If you’re interested in contributing to development or just want to keep an ear to the ground, subscribe to the list and drop us a line!
*What happened to v1.5, you ask? It was packaged up last week, but we were close enough to v1.6 that I didn’t end up announcing it.
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ReplicatorG 0008 and the generation 3 firmware v1.4 are now available! If you’ve been using an old version, now is the time to upgrade. The highlights of this release are:
- Named SD card builds. You can now create a library of build files on a single SD card and build them as needed. No more overwriting your teapots with dodecahedrons!
- ReplicatorG now ships with precompiled firmware images and an integrated firmware uploader. You no longer need to jump through all the hoops of installing the firmware libraries, the Sanguino patches, or even Arduino at all– just click on “Upload new firmware” in the Machine menu and you can update the firmware on your motherboard or extruder controller!
- The firmware now includes a remote reset command, as well as several small bugfixes that may address some of the in-build hangs some users have been experiencing.
More details, and download links, below.
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ReplicatorG 0007 and the v1.3 firmware are now available for Mac, Windows, and Linux! As usual, you can download the latest version from our Google Code site:
To make the most of 0007, you’ll want to install the new firmware, as well. Please note that we’re now hosting the firmware at the Makerbot Google Code site, instead of the RepRap site:
Details, and a changelog, are below.
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ReplicatorG 0006 is now available for your replicating pleasure! (UPDATE: The Mac OS X release is now available too!) This release should make life a little easier for those of you who have been having serial port configuration issues. Other fun enhancements include:
- Per-axis motor inversion (requires v1.2 firmware)
- More reliable build aborts
- An optional in-build temperature readout (disabled by default, but can be turned on in the preferences)
Download it here! A more detailed changelog follows after the cut.
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Hey, intrepid Makerbotters! The v1.2 release of the generation 3 firmware is now available on SourceForge. This release features bugfixes and enhancements to the firmware on the both the motherboard and the extruder. You can download it here. Be sure to check the Readme.txt for installation hints! The changelog is after the cut.
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