Smoothie issues fixed.

Controllers Smoothie
1

Well have been using smoothie for close to a year and putting up with a few issues,
i made the plunge and got a Duet Wifi, and have not looked back.

Issues that i have had is smoothie keeps hanging, especially accessing the built in webserver. Many people have this issue, answer is dont use the Webserver.
Then why have it there.
Lucky I have a high priced heater bed with built in thermal fuse, smoothie crashed overnight, Heater was stuck on, so lucky the thermal fuse tripped.
There is ambiguous documentation on smoothie, one function that is still listed, when i implemented it in the Config.txt, smoothie would not boot.
Took 2 long night till i found it, removed it and system boots, otherwise sites there with black display like you get when you do no have a sd card plugged in.
Would be nice if there was a basic syntax checker on bootup and display a config error message or something.
The sample config file offered should have every possible function listed in it, but its not, until you keep search forums etc and looking at other peoples config, you find extra stuff.
Some strange homing buzzing sound happens after bed level at start of print for about 5 seconds,other people have also experienced this, no apparent reason why, happens on various firmware, some time this stops when i create a new config file, then with some minor changes starts happening again.
Constantly have to reboot smoothie ware after a print, to make sure new print start correctly, cant understand why.
Very slow gcode file transfer either through usb or ethernet port, sick of resorting to pulling sd card in and out.
External SD card slot on display either does not work or unreliable, best answer i can see “too many devices on SPI bus”.

I normally would not write a post like this and just move on, but having some questions unanswered on this forum i can only conclude
that there is a issue there and we have not got a fix for it.
and the other reasons is going through other forums on other firmware and boards for 3D printers i find certain argumentative posts that a certain person who is interest is in smoothie get involved in. My advice is do not worry about what other people are doing, devote that time to your own smoothie project.
Smoothie has a potential of being really good, bet it seems to be stalling or there is some interest lost in it.

Its not my hardware, i had 3 different vendors boards, all exhibit the same issues.

As having duet for about 4 weeks not all i can say is “It works”.

I hope smoothie gets back on track and refocused.

Sorry if i have ruffled some feathers, i do not like being treated like a idiot or waste a lot of my time.

Imported from wikidot

2

So first, it’s not : “don’t use the web interface”, it’s “don’t load or reload the interface while it’s printing”. Thanks for the misrepresentation.

When you say “with the heater on”, do you mean “with the temperature maintained at the fixed temperature I asked it to be at” ( which might happen in rare situations but is generally safe ), or “with the mosfet always on, leading to the heater trying to reach it’s maximum possible temperature” ( which hasn’t happened in ( I think ) 3 years, and even then was due to a very short-lived bug ) ? We need to know which it is, if there is a safety issue you have to help us locate it.

You talk about ambiguous documentation but don’t even specify the option you are talking about. Which is it ?
Config error messages actually exist, but require a serial terminal to be read, this is something we can’t do anything about before v2.

The example config definitely SHOULD NOT contain all options, we try to remove some as often as we can, we get SO MANY users complaining there are too many. If you want to know all options, there is a page on the wiki dedicated to just that.

I have no idea what this is about a buzzing and do not remember any report of it. A video would be useful here.

Having to reboot smoothie after a print is not normal and is not something the tends of thousands of other users have to do. We would be glad to help you figure out what’s going on there, as we do with any other problem.

Gcode transfer is simply due to the hardware ( Smoothie came out 6 years ago and was the fastest around when it came out. Smoothie v2 will have much faster speed ).

Duet is MUCH LESS capable than Smoothie, and is much simpler, making it less possible for weird issues to occur like you have ( and like VERY FEW users have ). Sorry you were unlucky, glad Duet worked for you. Doesn’t really say much about Smoothie itself though.

You definitely ruffled feathers :slight_smile: I really don’t think you were treated like an idiot though ( would love a link to proof ), and please consider how much help you’ve been getting, and how rare a situation like yours is.

3

The heater issue, if its all running and at a specific moment in time whilst its printing, the mosfet is turned on by processor and processor crashes for some some reason, what will tell the mosfet to turn off? the last state was on before the crash.

There should be in all 3d printers a safety secondary temp failsafe that is independent of cpu control to protect runaway heating situations.
There are many examples on the net of fires caused by 3d printers.

Arthur i do not want this to turn into a keyboard war.

I replied to another post you made to one of my questions.

I would like to keep this of the forum, and quite willing to have a constructive discussion.

Just would like to point out a belief i have, you can have a product that may be the best technically, but if its unreliable, you may have been better having something less advanced but you can depend on it.

So i leave it in your court.

Thanks.

4

What you are describing for the heater, is called a watchdog, and Smoothie has had a watchdog for heaters for years. If I understand correctly, you are complaining about us not having a feature, when we actually have it. Please explain.

I also do not want a keyboard war, but you made quite a lot of accusations towards the project, I have answered those accusations, and I would now like answers to each of them ( see my previous message for the subjects in question ).

5

Just Follow up.

Its been over 2 months now i sent you a few emails, and no reply.

I was trying to be patient and understanding and was willing to give smoothie another go.

I am not here to cause any keyboard war or to promote a competing board.

So leave it in your court.

6

Hi Lukas,
I have 3 Smoothies that I use and I never had an issue with the heater being stuck ON. I’ve tested the board’s safety when I did my first build with it and checked the runaway, min/max temps and board crash scenario for bed and extruder. In all cases, the functions performed well. If I’m understanding you correctly, the board crashed, but continued to send power to the heater bed, presumably 10A or so and that blew the fuse?
Also, are you using an authentic Smoothie (not the MKS or other clone)?
And what do you mean by “Its not my hardware, i had 3 different vendors boards, all exhibit the same issues.” What vendor boards are you talking about?
Thanks

7

azteeg x5 2 of them, smoothieboard and a mks.
Also i have seen other users with issues i have tried to help them with, not isolated cases.
Its got a lot more bugs than just heater stuck on.
If i use 3 different hardware board and all show same issues, i have to conclude the software is the issue.

Biggest annoying bug is boot smoothie up, do not print anything, simply connect web interface, but do do anything and walk away.
Some time later you will find the smoothie hung and you have to do a hard reset.

its worse when you a printing something when you go to use the web interface.

The Fuse that blew was the built in 165Deg C temperature fuse in the heated bed i use a Filafarm heated bed.
Bed Temp for print was set at 80deg C. So if this heated bed had no Temp fuse in it, what would have happened?
Runnaway temp was caused by smoothie crashing out.

Also a friend of mine with a smoothieboard, his motors started to screech for a second or two just before it goes to start a print and after homing all axis.
I have had this numerous times and seen other people post about it.
Never figured why, once i got rid of it by making a new config file and pasting in a full copy of what i had before.

I am not here to keyboard war anyone, but what has peed me off issues being ignored or being treated like a idiot.

If i got a reply like “ok there seems to be a issue we will look into it might take a few months or so to rectify”. Then i would be happy and remain quiet.
But getting no definitive answers and wasting many hours of time try to fix a issue other people have has been frustrating to say the least.

8

“azteeg x5 2 of them, smoothieboard and a mks.
Also i have seen other users with issues i have tried to help them with, not isolated cases.
Its got a lot more bugs than just heater stuck on.
If i use 3 different hardware board and all show same issues, i have to conclude the software is the issue
What do you mean the software? Are you referring to S3D, cura, etc, or are your speaking about the firmware?
Biggest annoying bug is boot smoothie up, do not print anything, simply connect web interface, but do do anything and walk away.
Some time later you will find the smoothie hung and you have to do a hard reset.”

So the printer won’t respond to an M999 command? Also, when you say Smoothie, which board are you referring to (or all of them)? The authentic Smoothie purchased from a place like Uberclock, or the MKS/azteeg clone? What software are you using to communicate with the printer? Is it returning any error codes when it hangs? I’ve had hanging issues with many control boards, which is why I only print from SD card unless it’s a quick <2 hrs print.

“The Fuse that blew was the built in 165Deg C temperature fuse in the heated bed i use a Filafarm heated bed.
Bed Temp for print was set at 80deg C. So if this heated bed had no Temp fuse in it, what would have happened?
Runnaway temp was caused by smoothie crashing out.”

Which board was this? I’ve heard users of the MKS clone complain about what you described in their Facebook group. But whenever I’ve had a hung/frozen authentic Smoothieboard, all power was shut off (extruders, beds, motors, etc).

9

ok read what i said again.

power up smoothie, on what ever board, be it azteeg, smoothie or mks.

Dont print anything, run no gcode, just leave it on.

connect to it via the web interface, dont print or do anything, just leave the browser open.

Some time later the smoothie is hung, no error codes nothing, either reset the board or power on or off.

The forum has had other people mention about hanging, and turning of the web browser fixes is it.
So turning of a feature is the fix? I should not think so.

So forget about what you have heard from other people, but tell me this, is every other clone board of the genuine smoothie inferior or unstable?

But i will tell you this, first board i bought was a MKS, that was the only board i could get quickly to where i live.
That was hanging early on when i was putting my printer together.
Installed a cooling face etc, no difference.
Pulled it out, bought a Azteeg GT, as at that moment in time i could not find anyone on web store who had one in stock.
Same thing, hanging.
Some one i know well, later on got a genuine smoothie board, so i played with that, same problem…
I have more issues i found with smoothie than these ones, if you want i can post a whole list. but i do not think its going to help your cause.

Look at this stage seems more people want to argue, hang crap on other boards, dismiss or ignore problems.

With the runaway bed heater issue is not unique with smoothie, many other boards can do the same thing.
The Best and only solution is to have a secondary thermal cut out as a safety device, and should be in all 3d printers.
Furthermore is to have something on the hot end.
I have seen a aluminium block melt wheater heater cartridge was stuck on.
When i told some one this, they told me “Bullshit” the cartridge would fuse out.
So i said oh yeah, get a heater block, a heater cartridge and connect to it constant supply voltage.
Too 5-10 minutes and i got a “oh crap your right”.

anyway still never got any replies.

10

I too have moved to the Duet Wifi.

I finally lost it when I could not get a BL-Touch to work correctly on Smoothieware. Smoothieware does not handle BL-Touch error conditions.

Before that, it was the arrogance and dismissive attitude of the development team regarding suggestions from the community. EG. “Linear Advance” implementation.

And I can’t believe how primitive the User Interface is. Not up to current expectations.

Duet Wifi is a joy to use, and with the Panel Due it is an outstanding user experience.

My suggestion would be to stop development of the V2 and go back and fix up what you already have. It is a good start but really not ready for prime time.