General Workflow Question
-
I'm new to RepRap and the Duet (coming from Marlin/Ramps/Raspberry Pi). I understand that configuration is done in .g files, which sounds a lot better than recompiling firmware all the time. But I don't yet know what the best workflow is for doing that.
Ideally (1), I visualize mounting the SD card's directory on my PC (while the SD card is still in my Duet Wifi), then editing, renaming, etc. files on my PC with my favorite editor until I have everything configured as I want. Is that possible?
If it isn't, is the next best thing (2) to edit the file using the web-based editor built into the web interface? That seems workable except it doesn't seem easy/possible to rename files or make backup copies of files without removing the SD card or going through some gymnastics uploading and downloading files via the web interface.
The final option I see (3) is to move the SD card to the PC for editing (giving all the benefits of 1) and back to the Duet for execution. That seems a bit inconvenient.
So what is the optimal workflow? 1, 2, or 3 or something I haven't thought of?
-
(1) is not supported at the moment, you will mostly be doing (2).
Since they are all text-based files, you can copy and paste the content onto your PC for backup.
-
The firmware doesn't support mounting of the SD card via the network, but it does have fast upload to the SD card. While you are making a lot of changes to the configuration and homing files, I suggest you keep the master files on your PC, edit them there, and upload them to the Duet over the web interface after changing them. Use the Upload button on the Settings->General page of Duet Web Control - you can upload several files at once if you wish. Keeping them on your PC makes it easy to keep backups of multiple versions.
If you just want to try out small changes, then the editor in the web interface is very convenient. Remember to download the changed files back to your PC when you decide you want to keep those changes.
Another way of making temporary changes to the machine configuration is to use macro files. I even have a macro to switch my Cartesian printer into CoreXY mode, so that I can test the CoreXY functionality in new firmware releases.
-
Ahhh… That makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
-
Personally I keep a copy of the SD card contents as a separate folder on my PC, which I then back up as one would normally do. Then I make any changes necessary on the PC and upload via the web interface to the SD card. That way, I don't have to remove the SD card and I always have a backup of the entire contents of the SD card should anything go wrong. As DC has said, macros are also a good idea if you want to swap back and forth.
-
I occasionally take the sd card out and back it up, but for any small changes I just comment out the previous settings and insert new ones using the editor on the web interface. You can add a date to the changes as a comment, and then tidy away old settings once you've determined the new ones are an improvement.
A "backup sd config" option on web interface would be very useful.
