Received my new Sonic Pad a couple of hours ago and I am impressed.
Apart from not finding the Ender3 V3 SE when asked to select a printer, everything just went smoothly.
To enable the choice of V3SE printer, I shut the Sonic Pad down, waited 30sec and turned it back on; it then said new firmware available. I loaded the new firmware and started again…
There was the selection for Ender3 V3SE.
Since then I have sent it a couple of .gcodes to print and mucked around a bit with settings.
Had my V3SE and Ender 5 plus on the sonic pad for well over a year now. I did had an issue with a cheap USB cable to the 5+ but sorted that with a decent cable, a ferrite and blocking off the 5V feed of the USB. I like that the V3SE just runs, print after print, no recalibration required. Only thing I want is to be able to view 2 cameras at a time and to be able print direct from the slicer rather than cut’n’paste to Fluidd.
As a test file, rather than benchy which takes too long, I use a file called sitting man and it only takes a couple of minutes.
For me it saves waiting too long for a finish when I have found that what I changed has worked.
Anyway, I opened OrcaSlicer with the Sitting man.stl, setup the printer, sliced the file, selected print.
It then asked if I wanted to upload or upload and print. I selected both.
I then went to device and watched it all happen.
I then tried printing it from CP. That took a couple of extra steps to setup but worked also.
Of the 2 prints, I would definately say the one via Orca is way better.
My Orca is version 2.2.0 and Creality Print is 4.3.8.6986 and both will send to the Ender3V3SE via “print”
I will be using the Orca one as the prints turn out better.
Although I have printed small volume 3D for a few years with a much less printer, this is my first Creality printer and I am new to much of everything relating to 3D printing.
Although having been an electronics technician most of my life, I am very new to the technicalities of 3D printing.
I therefore can’t advise an expert in the field of 3D as to what to do; but, just for the sake of something random to try. How about sending from another computer with a different windows version ?
Yeah not everyone has multiple computers with different versions of windows …
It just doesn’t send to printers with more than one printer attached, it could be to do with port numbering (that would be too obvious). The program sees the device as the sonic pad, it sees that there are 2 printers attached to the sonic pad and that’s as far as it goes. You can’t send direct to either printer like I would with either of my Qidi printers or my V3KE or my Snapmaker (those aren’t connected to a sonic pad). A minor annoyance but not something that can’t be worked around. I have multiple computers with all sorts of OS, makes no difference, this is something to do with the sonic pad.
Just had an odd happening. I sent a file to the Sonic pad from Orca that was 32 meg in size (which took a few minutes).
Went to make a cup ot tea, when I came back to my computer Orca said there was trouble sending the file.
So, I thought ok I will put it on an sd card, pop it in a usb card stick and load it straight into the Sonic pad.
When I went into the work room to do it, the printer was already running the file and printing it.
Went back to Orca and all was well.
Odd.
Does anyone have an idea as to the maximum file size that can be sent to the Sonic pad ?
I don’t know the maximum size but I have many on my Sonic pad, which I must get round to clearing out, files over 32 meg the biggest is 73 meg, the Sonic pad has 2 gig of RAM so I am guessing that that is the maximum. That is one helluva big/complicated print.
Hello Bonfireman,
Thank you for your reply; I actually sent it a file yesterday that was 72 meg ( a big Unicorn) and it printed it ok.
It did still tell me that there was an upload error again but printed it anyway. No problem for me.
That was with Orca, I have not tried the same with Creality Print yet as it took all day to print that one.
Cheers.
Hello Bonfireman,
This may give me reason to get into the roof and run some cat 5 around the house. (noooooo )
The Sonic pad only connects at 2.4 GHz through my Fritz Box and that is a shame as sending it large files take quite some time; 5 GHz would obviously be much nicer.
So, it looks like I am to do some crawling … maybe it can wait till next winter; I measured 39.5 degrees in the roof on Sunday
I have a MESH network (TPLink Deco) it connects to the house with the WiFi but there is a network port on the WiFi to make the wired connection. All works great…apart from the laser printer, still got to sort that one, it did work fine but now doesn’t, oooh I love networks
All is working well via wifi (latest Creality Print) and file size is no problem it seems.
After playing around, I find that I am sticking to CP rather than Orca, as after setting up both the same, the prints come out the same.
Also Orca does not show a picture of what is being printed where as Creality Print does.
If you’re not seeing the image in the Sonic pad from orca, ensure that your printer gcode flavor is set to klipper, and there’s also a place where you can define the image size/type to send.
This is my sonic pad status screen right now with a print from orca -
)
