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Thanks! It doesn't bother me a bit to have to hit the "Connect" button in Repetier, so one more step in Mattercontrol won't bother me either.

Mac The Knife wrote:Thanks! It doesn't bother me a bit to have to hit the "Connect" button in Repetier, so one more step in Mattercontrol won't bother me either.

I understand, I'm just nitpicking because I'm having other random issues with the program.

Well, when I first started trying to run test prints, MatterControl crashed every time I try to print a file that didn't come from its own library. The fan shrouds printed ok, but then I tried a few of the others (dog-tag, coffee cup) and they crashed. So I tried slr files from Thingaverse. They ALL crashed, and I blamed Thingaverse. Then I downloaded 123Design and started making simple files to print, and they did all kinds of things, but they wouldn't print. In the end, MatterControl "quitworking". Also, as long as the barf file was visible to MatterControl (on the desktop), MC would crash on startup. Finally I learned to deleat them from the desktop before opening MC, and then deleating them from the list "to print" in MC. That got it open again. Then I tried to print something from the "library", and when it crashed, I realized I wouldn't be able to deleat it before opening MC. Now MC crashes every time I try to open it. It's completely inoperable, but probably has been from the beginning.

If MatterControl is such a dog, what's the alternative?

joseph wrote:If MatterControl is such a dog, what's the alternative?

Repetier Host. It's not as fancy and has some limitations, but it is WAY more stable than MC and has much easier UI and options settings than MC. Sure, it's not as pretty and fancy, but who the eff cares? I like the plain UI with simple buttons and controls that works over the one with a utterly idiotic method for slicing profile changes.

I'd personally discounted MC on the Basis of the UI and it was messing up the Z Height.
Also I normally want to interrogate the print layers prior to the print starting, mess with brim and support %ages etc
here you just click print and off it goes before I'm ready to actually print......

I was jumping between RH and MC and the former had a higher usability in that it was displaying the required information
clearly at the right time in the process. It's key in any machine control to only display the information you actually need at a specific
step, all the extra info should be accessible but not clutter what you need to know at a specific point.
Outside of this the Z Height issue is a deal breaker as it's a fundamental and at no point should the software get this wrong, luckily it
seems to be getting it wrong but thankfully too high off the bed. Yet it puts it in peoples minds .. what if it gets it wrong the other way around?

Just downloaded the latest version from within MC itself and the UI is much improved and well done to the team as that's a massive step
away from what was clearly a design decision to display as much info on one page as possible even if it wasn't needed... it does make it
a steeper learning curve but it's overall much better HMI IMO.

The auto connect has to go or as a minimum allow people to disable it. Simple scenario.. your printing from your SD card with a PC connected to it
and you fire up MC forgetting it's connected.. boom on-going print cancelled..... from a lapse in concentration or a miss click in windows...
With RH you can open the software and set up another print, experiment with settings etc and save it out ready while already printing from an SDCard.
I suppose you can physically disconnect your printer but for me it means i'm under my desk looking for the right cable....

So far with the latest version Slic3r wont work even with the defaults and throws a slicing error, but Cura works ok.
Still when you cancel a print it keeps the heaters on and even from the controls you can't switch the heaters off or do anything, I'm having to disconnect
and turn the machine off and back on to stop the heaters.... not good. I can stop a print in RH at any point and I've still got control of my printer from the RH UI.. it looks
like MC locks into the heating cycle and wont allow interrupt.

I can't see any thermal logging, is it there and hidden away somewhere, really useful if you have PID issues to resolve.

KAS posted a work around to disable the Auto Destruct,,,,, I mean, Auto connect, on the previous page.

Does anyone know why randomly MatterControl fails to build in the fill. Every once in a while it happens even with a reprint of an STL that previously printed with a fill. Although I occasionally change some parameters I always have a 30% fill as routine.

Thanks in advance.

issues with MC

some are stated above...

slic3r does not work it locks it up.

if I select anything in the queue to print that is not currently scheduled to print (in the top window) it prints what is in the top window when I select print from an item lower in the queue, as opposed to removing the current print and printing what I want. right now I have to delete everything from the queue and select print from the library. this places the file into the queue and it prints.

mattercontrol will not cancel a print when cancel is selected before it starts to print (when it is slicing) I need to disconnect the printer and reconnect, for the print to stop. discovered this because of the afore mentioned problem.

auto leveling does not work on the x or y tower, it stops z- moves after 1 move on the first granularity... it acts like you are not pushing the z- button with the mouse click . Z is set to " can be negative" delta arm radius has been set. I do not need it as I have my machine dialed in alright, but it is a feature that "might" make the prints a bit better.

Cura has a 50/50 chance of slicing. it will also lock up the machine


machine is an asus zenbook-win7 home premium-4 gig ram- 40 gig SSD and 500 Gig sata. latest .net framework.

I did not have much experience with Slic3r or cura before I got mattercontrol. I still do not I like the MC interface a lot.

Tom C

Aborting while heating doesn't work. I don't recall if there is anything they can do about that.

Even if you allow negative Z values in MatterControl, the firmware won't permit it.

I doubt Slic3r is crashing. It's notorious for taking a long time to generate gcode on some models.

If you've got an issue or bug that you want them to see, I *strongly* suggest you open an issue here: https://github.com/MatterHackers/MatterControl

g.

Geneb,

when using Slic3R it stops at generating an intermediate file, I have waited 30 minutes for it to Finish, and it never did. I will post this over at the link you suggested. in the mean time I am going to look at Slic3R as default. I used it during original set up from your manual, so I am going to go back.

Tom C

I've seen Slice3r take well over an hour to finish. In the race among the slicers, it tends to meander the wrong way.

I just updated to v1.2.3 of MC and it allows aborts during the heat-up process now. You can cancel the print and the button changes to "Reset Connection". Hit that, the firmware reboots and you're good to go.

g.

so the latest version of mattercontrol has a bug with slic3R it wont print , just sends m105 then nothing. it is a known bug. I discovered this after updating, they are working on it.

Tom C