What printing software are you using with your TOM?

[Sky S Beisel]

Hi folks.  I'm new to the 3D printing community.  One of my bosses found an old Thing-O-Matic HBP with HK6 collecting dust in one of the offices. He gave it to me to get working.  I've updated the firmware on motherboard and the extruder board, 4.1 and 3.1 respectively.  I've been able to get a model or two out with ReplicatorG (not very good quality).   I'm on a PC running Win7 64

My question is: What software are people using with their TOMs?

[Robert Trescott]

I use Simplify-3D and RepG to post the GCode. I like the slicing of S3D, but they don't fully support the TOM with their GPX driver, so I depend on RepG to save the GCode to my TOM's SD card. I do not print through my USB port, only the card.

If you spend the time to get RepG printing correctly on your TOM, you will learn a lot about how these machines work. The quality of RepG can be very good, but the other slicers are faster. If you can get great prints from RepG, you will get great prints faster from S3D!

Enjoy,
-Robert

On 6/25/2015 9:34 AM, Sky S Beisel wrote:

Hi folks.  I'm new to the 3D printing community.  One of my bosses found an old Thing-O-Matic HBP with HK6 collecting dust in one of the offices. He gave it to me to get working.  I've updated the firmware on motherboard and the extruder board, 4.1 and 3.1 respectively.  I've been able to get a model or two out with ReplicatorG (not very good quality).   I'm on a PC running Win7 64

My question is: What software are people using with their TOMs?

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[MacGyver]

I'm using Simplify 3D and printing directly over USB.  My TOM is a Mk7 though and has sailfish firmware on it.  So far the only thing S3D hasn't been able to do is set my extruder temp correctly so I have to use RepG to "override" the gcode for some reason.  I've got a ticket in to S3D for that.  My prints are coming out great.

[Dan Newman]

On 26/06/2015 10:52 AM, MacGyver wrote:
> I'm using Simplify 3D and printing directly over USB. My TOM is a Mk7
> though and has sailfish firmware on it.

If the ToM has 4.1 on it, then it has an early Sailfish release. Current
version for the ToM is 4.7.

Dan

[Robert Trescott]

I use the start.gcode and end.gcode to set my temperatures on the TOM. I disable temperature control from S3D, it just doesn't work for me for that very well. I also use RepG to save to SD so I can have proper access to the ABP MOSFET switch that I have connected to fans that I use for PLA prints and cooling down the bed after ABS prints.
Enjoy, -Robert

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[Todd Williams]

Thanks for the info on the extruder temps. I have a Cupcake on Gen3 with Mk6+ on 3mm and endstops set up a la ToM. I have S3D. I finally have the Start Gcode working in RepG to where I am finally ready to start trying to print after 5 years of off-on tinkering. Can I just copy the start code over to S3D and carry on from there? Any other tricks I should know about? My main concern is print speeds. If each line of Gcode doesn't state the federate then it tries to move a LOT faster than it can. Z won't go up at more than 200mm/min, XY is an unknown, and I really don't know what the max speed is on the extruder. I have set retraction in S3D at 200mm/min, print speed at 100mm/min, Z at 200 and XY at 400. Oh, and does it matter if I use M73 or M18 to start/end the build process?

[Sky S Beisel]

Well shoot!.  in the process of updateing to 4.7 I think i might have screwed the pooch (corrupted the mainboard firmware).  

During the update process we had a power blip, and now I can't connect to the TOM and the display isn't active anymore.  

[Sky S Beisel]

I should have had faith.  I tryed to update firmware a few more times and then SUCCESS! and all is right with the world. 

[Dan Newman]

On 26/06/2015 3:14 PM, Sky S Beisel wrote:
> Well shoot!. in the process of updateing to 4.7 I think i might have
> screwed the pooch (corrupted the mainboard firmware).
> During the update process we had a power blip, and now I can't connect to
> the TOM and the display isn't active anymore.

You'll need to reload the bootloader using the Arduino application. It will
require an AVR ISP programmer. Alternatively, you can buy a new Arduino Mega 2560,
cut the reset trace on it, and then use it to replace the old Arduino Mega. However,
that will cost you 2 - 3x the cost of an AVR ISP programmer.

Dan

[Erwin Ried]

I'm still using an old 3.7 or 3.9 version of jetty's firmware in my tom, never got good result with newer ones. Rep-G 0040 with the old skeinforge 35 works properly (very good quality but slow, I compared some samples from the replicator 2 and there is no differences) until I switch printer.