MatterControl Crash

[fwkseemecnc]

MAtter Control suddenly crashed and shut down and printing stopped. 12hrs printing and print out is nice but it had to shut down.
Some details/observations I like to share;
1. The print size is big actually; 1200 layers, expected print time 19hrs.
2. Hot end and hot bed temperature maintained and did not come down though. (maybe can have a heating max time, where beyond this the heating will stop. Need to save this in Eeprom) Otherwise as in this case heating will go indefinitely!!!. Not good and not safe.
2. Print stopped at approx line 800 - 820. Traced back by going to the line number and looking at the 2D view. Here I found something interesting.

When I tried to view in 3D at line number more than 800, MATTERControl shut down. There was no issue when viewed in 2D view. I could all the way to line 1200. Maybe that was the problem, when the printing reached to that line number. MC crashed when trying to refresh the 3D view. I will try again but this time keeping the view to 2D.

Feedback from SEEMECNC much appreciated. Print out until height 210mm was fine.

[stonewater]

long prints are best done from the SD card. there are a ton of reasons why software crashes and a lot of them are related to a PC's hardware, not the software. run the same print of the card that came with the printer and see what happens.

Tom C

[lightninjay]

Like stonewater said, often times your computer will crash if the file being handled is too much for the software and your computer to handle it. I print tall cello pieces on my printer, often all the way up to 1500 layers and multiple days printing. They key is to inspect the Gcode before exporting it to an SD card, and then do as stonewater said by running the file directly off the card. Leaving a computer attached to a 3D printer running that long is just asking to have issues, imo.

[fwkseemecnc]

OK noted. Will run from SD card. What do you mean when you say inspect the G code before exporting to SD card, is it generating the layer views?

[ZakRabbit]

OK noted. Will run from SD card. What do you mean when you say inspect the G code before exporting to SD card, is it generating the layer views?

G code is what the printer uses for actual moves, G1=printing move, G0=rapid move, etc...

[fwkseemecnc]

I have some questions rgds printing over multiple days, how do we actually go about doing it? Do we pause the print and leave it until we start again the next day? Or we actually stop the print and continue from where we stop? I tried looking this up in the manual but could not find anything about it. I know if we pause the temperatures will maintain, so I presume we cannot leave it that way until the next day. If we stop and shut everything down, I have no idea how to continue from where I stop. Thanking in advance.

[fwkseemecnc]

Wanted to copy files to SD card for printing. But SD card is write protected. For those who had this problem can follow this link http://www.hackerlint.com/remove-write- ... rd-solved/ to disable it.

[IMBoring25]

I think most people just let them run. I'm personally hesitant to do that when a homemade machine with limited failsafes will be left unattended, but some do.

You can't turn off the bed during a print unless you're using a filament that will stick to your bed surface at room temperature. Even in that case, turning off the bed will likely produce some dimensional irregularities at the interface (because the lower section will have cooled and contracted before the top one is laid down, which will be true to some extent anyway, but especially so with a long break at room temperature) and a weaker layer bond at the interface. You can and should shut off the hot end and probably the motors (which will mean the machine will need to be re-homed on restart).

It is possible to break a gcode file into multiple gcode files at specific layers and use the pieces of the start and end gcodes you want to execute a partial shutdown at the end of each file and restart at the beginning of each file. I have used this basic strategy to completely encapsulate nuts in printed parts.

[fwkseemecnc]

Managed to complete the 19hr print from the SD card. Print height 300mm. First time to print from SD card.

Hand mold 300mm height

2 issues;
a. blobs (hope I get the name correct) between the fingers. I did not change any default settings so there is something to learn to reduce this. Advice will be much appreciated though.

Blobs

b. Delaminations found between layers (3 layers out of the 1200). About 1". They occur at the earlier layers. Comments appreciated.

1 question about the LCD screen; Advance setting > General > Max. inactive > 9999
What is the Max. inactive referring to? TQ

[lightninjay]

Regarding your blobbing issue, most would contend that this is a retraction setting issue. I run a retraction speed of 100mm/s (pretty high for most people's tastes, but it works for me) with a distance of 5.4 mm for both prime and retract and I slice my files with Craftware, rather than the predominately used Mattercontrol, Slic3r, Kisslicer, etc.

Since you didn't mention what type of filament you are printing in, I am going to assume that your delamination issues are due to ABS shrinkage. One method to help combat this is to encapsulate the build area of your printer. Some choose to print brackets to hold plexiglass and other hard materials in place to insulate their build area, while other folks like myself and member Mike B prefer to go a simpler and cheaper route by velcroing a clear shower curtain, cut to size, around the printer (example found here).

In response to your question about the LCD menu settings, as far as I am aware, that particular setting controls how long your printer will sit idle at temperature before it decides to kill the heaters and cool itself off. Sort of like a safety "auto-off" feature for if you walk away and forget your printer was hot.

Hope I've been of some help!