Makerbot 3D printing service in London? http://makerbot.wikidot.com/forum/t-574585/makerbot-3d-printing-service-in-london Posts in the discussion thread "Makerbot 3D printing service in London?" Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:32:47 +0000 http://makerbot.wikidot.com/forum/t-574585#post-1588982 Re: Makerbot 3D printing service in London? http://makerbot.wikidot.com/forum/t-574585/makerbot-3d-printing-service-in-london#post-1588982 Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:33:15 +0000 Jetguy 612096 S3G is binary version of gcode. In other words, if you know anything about what happens with an 8 bit microcontroller (or really any microcontroller) sending ASCII text via a serial link, nothing else can happen until the data is finished transmitting. In other words, you motion control STOPs dead with pauses until the entire ASCII string is sent. Thus, the idea behind the binary compression which greatly reduces the CPU time. When you print with rep-g across USB, ever notice the pause before the machine even tries to home or do anything? That is rep-g converting the text gcode to S3G as a temp file before it sends it to the bot across the USB. ALso, for massive performance increases, we can save the S3G to the SD card and reduce the latency and thus tiny pauses during the print that cause little zits.

Thus to be perfectly clear, S3G is a compressed version of the created gcode, and since the gcode has the homing and other bot specific info in the start and end portions, not easily tranportable between machine variants. Also, I don't know that you can ever go from S3G back to text gcode. In other words, it's one way compression for most usage. The gcode interpeter in the firmware reads it as commands, but I don't think you could use that to convert it back to text as a C++ application on the PC.

]]> http://makerbot.wikidot.com/forum/t-574585#post-1588966 Re: Makerbot 3D printing service in London? http://makerbot.wikidot.com/forum/t-574585/makerbot-3d-printing-service-in-london#post-1588966 Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:09:30 +0000 artbot 1424862 Hi

isn't the s3g file type the makerbot replicator equivalent to gcode? In which case this will be specific to a particular machine and configuration and not much use for another machine, even of the same type as it's unlikely to have exactly the same settings, e.g. for homing.

You need the equivalent of the source code for the object you want made, like a .STL or OBJ file type which can then be used to generate the specific gcode or S3G code for the individual machine that will be doing the printing. This is more generic information that can be used by multiple platforms or devices.

cheers

Peter

]]> http://makerbot.wikidot.com/forum/t-574585#post-1588850 Makerbot 3D printing service in London? http://makerbot.wikidot.com/forum/t-574585/makerbot-3d-printing-service-in-london#post-1588850 Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:16:26 +0000 sangoma 1465047 Does anyone know of someone who provides a 3D printing service for Makerbot in London? I am in urgent need to get an S3G file printed today or tomorrow.

Much appreciated,

Anton

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