Printer stops printing and continues step by step very slowly

elmercedino

Dear gentlemen:

I own a AnetA8 chinese copy since 2016; firmware is Marlin running on a Arduino Mega; my PC runs Windows 7.

For the last 6 years I´ve been using Repetier Host, different versions.

Last months, the printer started to behave very strange, suddenly, in the middle of a work it stops and start to go step by step with a lot of seconds between them. It doesn´t happen at the beginning of the job, maybe one hour from the start (I haven´t checked if it appears allways at the same moment).

Only way to solve this is restarting the computer an restart the printing.

Yesterday I activated the error messages on the Register window and today I got the "Communication timeout -reset send buffer block" during a failed print. I don´t know why it started to do that (and when), but I´m almost sure (and I´m going to verify it later today), that the problem appears only when I have SolidWorks 2014 opened or it was closed but in the same Windows session; does it have any sense for you? Do you have any reports about SolidWorks?

I repeat, in the past I used to have both open, Repetier Host and SolidWorks 2014 with no printing issues.

Many thanks for your time.

Regards

Juan

Repetier

Are these command being executed also they come separated by a timeout? Timeouts happen when we do not receive the firmware response from printer so we do not know that we can send the next command. But it can also happen that printer goes into an error state and does not communicate at all due to a defect (sensor or heater cable normally). You should activate log in host enable commands and ack as well so you see full communiccation (also temperature response might get filtered, see M105 setting in printer settings). You might also see if "ok" comes as "o" or "k" or not at all.

Normally other software can not interfere with communication once connection is made - windows allows only one connection not like linux. Also never heard soldworks makes troubles.

elmercedino

Many thanks,

I´ll keep the log activated just to send you a sample next time it happens (it doesn´t happen allways).

If the error is on the printer, why it is solved restarting just de PC and not the printer?

Will keep you informed.

Regards

Juan

Repetier

It might be a driver problem and windows restart restarts it. Next time you can also try unplugging and reconnecting usb cable. Would normally also restart driver. Print is of course still stopped after stopping connection.