Hi from Bloomington, Indiana

[peterk]

Drove to Goshen on Friday to pick up a Rostock Max at the warehouse. JJ showed me around. Very cool. Great that these dollars stay in my state.

Have been printing pretty crude and small useful items with a Cupcake CNC the last five years or so. It's endlessly tweaked and fine-tuned and works great but I need something bigger, more precise, and quicker (getting nozzle and build platform up to temperature takes quite a while).

My main computers are Macs but the Cupcake and CNC machine run off of Ubuntu on an older Dell. I like the lean setup. Is there a workable way for the Rostock to work from Ubuntu? Maybe premature to ask this, since I haven't had time yet to open the box, let alone start assembly or unzip the software download. If Mac or Windows are the only choices it's not the end pf the world.

I (and my kids) can't wait until the new printer is ready to go.

[Xenocrates]

Mattercontrol (the normal host program), works on Linux as well. I'm fairly certain that Repetier host and Simplify 3D will work with linux, or through WINE or a VM. Once the printer is tuned, then you don't need a computer to do anything other than generate the G-code to go on an SD card (the printer comes with one, just in case you don't have one) The controller in the printer handles all the temperature controlling, and the parsing of the G itself, just like most CNC machines. Admittedly, the control interface on a RAMBO is a mite less flexible than that on a Haas. But the Haas console is probably as big as your cupcake on it's own.

And the nice thing is that you can probably connect the Cupcake and the Rostock to the same computer, and manage them both from Mattercontrol (you will need to swap printer profiles), at the same time.

[Eaglezsoar]

Welcome to the Forum! It's great to have you as a new member and I thank you for purchasing a Rostock Max V2.
There are several entries on the Forum concerning Ubuntu like this one: http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1273

If you open your browser and enter the following into your search box : site:forum.seemecnc.com ubuntu
you will find all the entries concerning Ubuntu.
You can download the latest manual at seemecnc.com after you get there go to downloads and you will see the latest manual.
I wish you a problem free build, be sure to read the manual and follow it. Do not just try to build from the pictures.

[Eric]

Welcome to the forum! I was born and mostly raised in Bloomington. My parents still live there. I'm flying out for a visit tommorrow, as it happens.

[peterk]

Quick post-Rostock-build report.
Except for some ID problems with screws and other small hardware the build went fine and was much fun. Really impressed how well everything fits together. Documentation is great and very helpful. Just finished build tonight and decided to revert the old Mac Book back to OSX after trying to get all the software together in Lubuntu for an hour. So, now the firmware is installed. Display shows the right stuff and tomorrow the final step.

One little problem I have with two of the Acrylic panels that are snapped in the bottom at the very end of the build - after I had everything snapped in place, went up to the kitchen for a little coffee, came back in the workshop and two of the panels had broken in half, lying on the floor. Pretty sure operator error and only a cosmetic thing.

[Xenocrates]

The nice thing about being in Indiana is that you can probably drive over there and ask them what might have caused them to snap and probably get replacements much faster than someone like me could. It might also be a better idea to print vented shrouds for those areas. Those steppers can get kinda toasty.

If you do score replacements, I suggest taking a heat gun or hot air drier, and some form of riser, and using it to pre-bend the pieces slightly. I've not had to do it for mine, but a heat gun on low will relax the acrylic enough to get it to bend or un-bend (I un-bent mine after initial installation so I could laser engrave it)

[Eric]

Indiana is bigger than you think. It's nearly a 4-hour drive from Bloomington to Goshen, one-way. It obviously was worth the drive for the original purchase, but probably not for the odd part.