automaker in use

[Don Colley @doncolley]

I have been trying my newly downloaded Automaker (no Robox yet) and all of the stl files I have made from various sources appear on the screen, does this mean that they will print? I hope my Robox is as simple to use as Automaker.

[BHudson @bhudson]

No, it does not mean they will print. However, there is a good chance that they will. There is still slicing that needs to happen and that will determine if your models will be sent to the printer successfully. Before you get a model into AutoMaker you need to make sure that you don’t have unsupported overhangs and other features that can’t be printed. Then in AutoMaker, you may need to adjust infill and profiles to get the model to slice.

[Don Colley @doncolley]

Thanks for the information, I will just have to wait for my Robox and try it for real.

[Rob @bespokeproductdesign]

I’ve found many models on Thingivers are un-printable (on any FDM/FFM machine I assume, not just the Robox). Automaker will add support material in for you (you don’t need to model it). Generally i’m finding that solid lumpy models (like cars or busts) print fine whereas some finicky models with long fine details like aerials or wings, or models with loads of overhangs (like an x-wing) are very difficult to print, unless you can re-orientate the model so that it prints these details vertically rather than horizontally. Again, I’d imagine this is a common issue, not specific to the Robox. Things like that are better suited to SLS rather than FDM/FFM 3Dprintes as the powder bath provides all the support you need.

[Pete @pete My Robox is a Blue Commercial Version]

if there is an invisible face on the model it will need to be fixed.

Check out https://netfabb.azurewebsites.net/ (requires login)

Or http://www.meshmixer.com/ (download)

 

Both of these can fix missing faces in your model

[Danny Chau @danny-chau]

I think alternatively would be CEL is to collaborate with Simplify 3D to support Robox, I believe Simplify 3D has one of the best custom print part support in 3D printer driver software (like photoshop to photo retouching).

[Marvin Weigand @milchkuh]

+1

[Anonymous]

+1

I’d also like to point out that the current ‘snap face to bed’ feature is buggy. I tried printing out a name tag that would print (badly) horizontally, but when printed on its side the slicing software got all the letters back-to-front and in reverse or something. Definitely needs more work.

I wonder whether Cura could be adapted for the Robox? It’s open source. For some reason CEL seem to happy to use some open source software (Slicer or however its written), but won’t open source their own, so we can’t adapt it to improve it.

[gid @gid]

Well, there’s nothing wrong with using open source software in closed-source software if the licence permits it. For a start, all the main desktop closed-source OSes contain third-party OSS, as well as the majority of commercial games. I personally dislike the GNU approach that expects you to agree with their political philosophy in order to use their code. I prefer a more pragmatic approach, eg. the Apache licensing model.

There’s a lot of proprietary intellectual property in AutoMaker and the Robox firmware that I can understand CEL not wanting to open-source right now: there’s a pretty hefty risk of being ripped off by a company with less overhead and better funding.

However, I think there’s a really good case for CEL to look into ring-fencing the proprietary parts as a closed-source component and opening as much of the rest as possible on GitHub so others can contribute. I’m not particularly familiar with AutoMaker’s competitors as such, as far as the part that is a straightforward front-end for arranging models and starting print jobs is concerned, so I can’t tell which parts are precious or not.

There’s also a worry that users would tweak things or use unofficial builds and then bitch and complain when their heads or extruders fail. In the future that’s less of a concern, but while so many users are having teething trouble with this first release of Robox, at least keeping a single version of the software platform out there for now it reduces the number of unknowns.

Anyway, isn’t Cura just a host application: an analogue for AutoMaker? CEL’s plan is clearly that the Robox platform consists of the Robox hardware, firmware and AutoMaker software; not just the Robox hardware. Why buy a Robox if you’re going to throw half of it away? As I understand it, AutoMaker exists because there isn’t (yet) a host application with the required features: handling of dual-size nozzles, support for SmartReel functionality, the specific configurations required for Robox, and so forth. From the look of it, Cura is similarly tailored towards their hardware platform, with third-party printers being treated as a distinct afterthought.

A more useful question would be to ask if Repetier (for example) could be adapted for use with Robox, but I still ask Why? It’s basically like buying a Ford and then deciding to replace the bodywork and interior with that of a Volkswagen because you prefer it. Why not just buy the Volkswagen?

Now, having the option to replace Slic3r is another matter! I can see some technical issues: as there needs to be a post-processing step to amend the GCode from Slic3r for Robox features, feeding it the GCode from a different slicer would require the Robox post-processing script to drop all the assumptions it makes about the input GCode. In other words, right now the Robox script is presumably designed to input Slic3r-made GCode, rather than generic GCode, so it could cause trouble if the GCode contains weird unexpected stuff.

As far as the current use of an AGPL’ed slicer is concerned: while it’s currently unconfirmed whether AutoMaker/Robox can properly use the GCode of other slicers, the fact that it is using a well-known open language to i/o with the slicer indicates that it can use a GPL’ed slicer without requiring AM to be open-sourced. If it were tightly integrated to the point that AM couldn’t use another slicer, there could be an issue or two: they would have to insulate the interface to Slic3r through an open-sourced interface layer to be properly compliant. However, AM does have a button to input arbitrary GCode so it’s clearly intended to be slicer-independent.

Tom Gidden -- Bristol, UK -- New Roboxer? Check out the wiki, and add yourself to the map! http://roboxing.com/user_locations

[Marvin Weigand @milchkuh]

I think a special profile for simplify3d which is developed together by robox and simplify3d staff would be best. Maybe then with little postprocessing in automaker. Simplify3d even supports printing infill and perimeter with different nozzles which itself have different sizes. Therefore it should not be this hard to make it fit for robox. I am pressuring this a bit because I think the slicing capabilities of simplify3d are far better than that of automaker and it seems that software is one of the biggest issues of robox at this time. Otherwise the very different qualities of the printed models which were shown here are and not based on miscalibration or defects are hardly to explain. Software, firmware and drivers are the most difficult parts of 3d printing and I doubt that CEL can manage this alone in the near future because the team is too small to handle both hardware issues and improving the software significantly. Therefore my strongest advice is to work together with 3rd party software engineers to get good results fast. After that automaker could be improved step by step without this pressure by the robox users.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by  Marvin Weigand.

[Chris White @chrisyt]

@milchkuh You’re almost certainly right - we have heard great things about Simplify3D, and we’re actually testing it right now. We can currently use most available slicers (we’ve already been trying Cura), but only those that have a command line backend which allows it to process silently behind AutoMaker. This GCode must also be post processed to control the needle valves (essentially replacing retracts with valve controls). Unfortunately Simplify3D does not have this backend, and it would therefore have to replace AutoMaker altogether, which is not our plan right now. We are considering discussing adding the necessary valve control to Simplify3D through collaboration with them directly, but there has to be a market need and sufficient licenses in it for them to bother - that’s not forgetting the fact it currently costs ~£80 a licence, adding a lot to the purchase cost of Robox.

[dave @dave]

Great to hear other slicers are available as well, can’t wait to try that out, Slic3r is making a mess out of some of my prints and I’m wondering if a different slicer will do a better job

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