What should be the easiest part of building my printer is turning out to be
the biggest PITA.

I've been trying to set up the Arduino IDE so I can flash the firmware on
the MegaMax 3D printer, which should be really simple, but I'm running into
one problem after another.  First newer versions of the IDE don't work with
the Mega4560 board even though it appears to be a couple years old, so I
had to track down and install an older version of the IDE.  Then I find
that I'm having compile problems because the older IDE isn't compatible
with latest C compiler I installed.  Then, after I track down the older,
compatible C compiler I find it is dependent on older GMP and other modules
and won't work with current versions.  It's like pulling potatoes except
that the string of dependencies on outdated software never seems to end.

So eventually I get what I think is all the out-dated software packages and
dependencies together, configure it, make it, and then install fails.  What
little documentation for all this that exists (except how to actually make
it work) is spread out in a 100 posts on 20 internet forums.

3 questions:

1)  Are there any one-stop-shopping sites anywhere with DLs for all the
necessary software and dependencies for any given Arduino board like the
Mega2560?

2)  Is all this because I'm using linux or is the situation the same for
all OSes?  

3) How the hell does anyone get ANYTHING working on an Arduino board?

It might be worth setting up a spare machine (maybe at the space) with
Ubuntu just to try it out.

The IDE seems to work fine for the boards it supports. There's a config
file you can edit (and support files you can add) to support other
boards, but it doesn't always work, and I haven't found any
documentation for it.

BTW it's also possible to set up the Eclipse IDE to work with Arduino.
It's on my to-do list, but it does take some research to make sure
you're doing it right (Royce has it working). There are a few web pages
about it, some of which seem to be slightly out of date. Things to seem
to be improving, though.

The Marlin page at GitHub says that you have to use version 0022 (and
someone on a forum said 0023 works) of the Arduino IDE to compile the
Marlin code because of some incompatibilities with more recent versions of
the IDE (I tested that idea and it's true- Marlin won't compile on Arduino
1.0.0 or 1.0.1).  What they don't tell you is that in order to get one of
those older versions of the IDE to work you also have to hunt down and
install a bunch of other out-dated software.

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04.

There are known issues with the RepRap firmware(s) and the latest Arduino
IDE, so 0022 or 0023 is recommended.

(On Mac OS X all I had to do was download and run the older version, there
was no other mucking about.)

Did you try Sprinter as well as Marlin?

I'm hoping we can figure it out at the Meetup tomorrow.

Pete

It says the errors are all in the SDcard and LCD sections, due to
changes in the libraries. What happens if you comment out those
sections?

It might also be possible to compile with the old libraries.

I can show you how to download a hex file without the IDE. But you do
have to be able to compile successfully before you'll get that hex
file.

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Ron Bean

Usually libs that are NOT 1.0 compatible (or vise versa) need a few simple lines of code.. as the Arduino IDE has changed the names of some of the core files.

maybe try updating those library that are older? (like the SDFAT lib (or whatever it is using)...same with the LCD libs..)

if you're on a debian based distro, "apt-get build-depends arduino" should
get you everything to build an old version (hopefully)

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 5:15 PM, The_Digital_Dentist <tyler.der...@gmail.com

Nothing really to contribute here,except I noticed that Dentists don't use
the common idiom  " It's like pulling teeth", but instead use  "It's like
pulling potatoes".

I'm rolling Marlin on mine with Arduino 022 on an Ardy Mega with Ramps 1.4 and it's been good. At least on a pc with windows.

OK!  Now it's really ALIVE!  Special thanks to Gary for helping out at the
3D printing meetup at bucketworks.

For anyone interested, the compile problem was traced to a macro in the
Arduino IDE that defined a math rounding function.  It seems that the C
compiler also had a "round" function defined (maybe a recent addition?) and
the two were in conflict.  Gary commented out the Arduino macro and it
compiled just fine after that.

I have tweaked Marlin for the specifics of my machine and it seems to be
working now.  I can position all three axes, the endstops (min and max)
work fine, the LCD, encoder, and beeper all work.  SD card is detected, but
I haven't tested it further.  The kill switch doesn't seem to work.  

I loaded the calibration cube file from pronterface and hit print and the
machine took off and ran with it.

Time to mount the electronics in a box, wire the machine and dress the
cables and get it ready for the extruder.

I think it's just finding the right place in the firmware to put the pin
definition.  As far as I know it drives a hardware interrupt that kills
motors, extruders, hot ends and heated bed.  I'll let you know when I have
it working.

I'll post some video of it running shortly.

That's because pulling teeth is easier than debugging software (for me,
anyway).