Insane Plastruder Controller

Occasionally, the plastruder goes insane, possibly because it loses its firmware. This is characterized by messages in ReplicatorG like "Error: Payload is not big enough." and the temperature reading in the control panel is zero even when the thermistor has the correct resistance. Other more subtle signs may occur before this, like the control pannel extruder stop button not exactly stopping the motor.

There are two ways to fix corrupted firmware. The hard way is to follow the Plastruder Firmware Update instructions. You could also update your thermistor table or firmware version at the same time. The easy way is to use ReplicatorG itself to update the firmware as follows:

Power off your cupcake and disconnect the ethernet cable from the plastruder controller
Connect the usb-ttl cable directly to the plastruder controller
In ReplicatorG, choose Machine—>Upload new Firmware
choose Extruder Controller and click Next
Choose the version of the firmware you want to load from the list
Choose the serial port
You may need to mess with the reset sequence, same as listed in the (hard) firmware update procedure above.

If ReplicatorG fails to load the firmware, and the reset sequence doesn't help, you may have to reload the bootloader too with the programing cable included in the delux kit.

also it's a good idea to switch to using shielded cat5e cable to help keep the firmware from becoming corrupted in the first place.

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