TCP/IP Reconnect

Svhorsch

Hey there,
some days ago, the idea came into my mind, that my Anet A8 printer would be more powerful if it would be accessible via WiFi. At some point, i discovered that it has in addition to the USB port, also a direct UART port, which is cool, cause this allowes me a lot of things.
Using a ESP8266 ( e.g. https://www.reichelt.at/entwicklerboards-esp8266-wifi-modul-debo-esp8266-p192142.html?&trstct=pos_0&nbc=1 ) and a WiFi to UART bridge ( https://github.com/roboremo/ESP8266-WiFi-UART-Bridge ) this could have been a very nice, cheap and easy extension, and it worked out like a charm.
But now we come to the problem: after some time (something like 20-30mins) the ESP8266 seems to close the connection (doesn't seems like that it is caused by the program on it, i read already trough it, seems more like a bug or something in the WiFi library of the ESP8266), and the Repetier Host just stops.
Would be really cool if you guys could add a auto reconnect to the TCP/IP connection mode to solve this problem.

Greetings from austria,
Svhorsch

Repetier

Please try with Repetier-server instead. Can be controlled by host. It does automatically reconnect, also that alone does not help. But it also has a rescue system and if it reconnects within a set time it would assume a usb break and just continue. Will only work if printer does not reset on reconnect or it will loose position and then it gets complicated depending on printer behaviour.

Svhorsch

Hey there,
thanks for the fast response!
This is a really good point, and of course, if the printer resets, it absolutely makes no sense to continue sending the data. But on the other hand, i just wrote a simple program for my computer, which does nothing else than being a "TCP pass-trough" and reconnects if the connection gets lost. In that case repetier host connects to my program which is then connected to the printer, works really great but would be cool to eliminate this program (cause here is the problem that my program causes in some situations a delay and therefor the print gets crappy).
Also the idea of the repetier-server is a good idea, but the disadvantage here is that i need a way more powerful "man in the middle" (e.g. raspberryPI).
About the reset, the printer doesnt resets at all, just the ESP8266, and even there im not sure if it resets or just closes the connection because of ?? a bug ??.
I still think that i would be a very awesome feature to have this option to enable auto reconnect (of course this should have a warning on it regarding the problems you already mentioned).
Would there be any possibility to code it myself? (e.g. plugin system) cause im really curious about it.

Greetings,
Svhorsch

Repetier

Not sure why you put Raspberry pi in the list - server version for windows would work as well.

You can not modify a host connector - so if you say plugin you need the full connector and that is quite complex. Automatic reconnect might be simpler to just add as selectable option. Maybe with timeout so if it looses connection and does not get it back within a minute it would accept reconnect as printer was just disabled. In all other cases it should not flag disconnect and just reconnect so print does not get interrupted. Might also be a good solution for server - especially if wifi connection is used a disconnect is quite likely. That is why I never would do that, only using ethernet cable but others are more open as I see:-)

Svhorsch

The raspberry was just an example for a device which could be mounted on the printer, but if i got the repetier server correctly, i would have the same problem cause then the server would connect via tcp/ip to the printer, and if that connection fails, it would have the same problem, or did i got it wrong?
The selectable option as you described sound very nice, would love to see this feature =)
So is there the possibility that you implement this?

Repetier

For server I plan this at least.