Good jump / flash drives - for constant write/rewrite

[AndyL]

One of my 3D printers has this lovely firmware code - that has it constantly writing to the USB port. Load the models onto the memory card, hit print, then it writes/rewrites where it is in the print process constantly for the duration of the print.

Most of the jump drives I've bought have survived less than a month, before they're fubar and everything locks up.

Machine can only address up to 32gig (put a 64gig on and it doesnt see it) usually I'm buying whatever jump drive I can find on sale at Costco/Staples/Walmart. Usually verbatim or SanDisk

I tried some class 10 micro SD cards from the dash cam - results were actually worse, they didn't last more than 3-4 prints 20-24hr prints.

Curious if anyone knows if there's something that would tolerate the constant read/writes better, as it really sucks replacing them regularly and trying to keep track of which one is good vs bad etc

[pheoxs]

What sort of printer is this? None of mine have ever required a usb drive, they just print from the sd card and thats it. I've been using the same ones for well over a year.

Have you considered the other route and seeing if someone has released modded firmware in your printer community to disable this? There shouldn't be any reason they're constantly writing to flash (which is what kills it, not reads) unless its something designed for power outages to resume prints I guess.

[AndyL]

Jgaurora A5, the new Marlin is starting to do it too as part of it's power outage resume.

It's semi handy, I could flash new - but thus far pretty much want this printer to remain mostly stock.

[pheoxs]

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Jgaurora A5, the new Marlin is starting to do it too as part of it's power outage resume.

It's semi handy, I could flash new - but thus far pretty much want this printer to remain mostly stock.

I'm guessing you bought it from them but if not, iprint-3d sells those printers in Edmonton and they respond quickly on fb, you could ask if theyve had any issues or any recommendations?

[Sugarphreak]

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[AndyL]

They've been known to eat flash drives since release.

I have discussed with John, but no this didn't come from him, it was an early beta(?) Unit sent for evaluation that ended up with me. Mines been chewing them up a bit faster than usual, but also running it near 24/7 - not normal use.

Sugar - yeah it won't see anything bigger than 32gb Samsung's smallest is 128.

[Sugarphreak]

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[AndyL]

Stupid me checking manufacturers website

Wonder if I could use one of those SD wifi cards - that would actually be handy especially if it's writes were to volatile memory instead of the sdhc.

Really the biggest gcode I've managed so far was a f**ckup from hell and was still under a gig i think the correct file was around 4mb. Lol

[Sugarphreak]

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[jacky4566]

Man this does not sound good. SD Flash should last in the order of 100,000+ writes so having it dead after 96 hours is very very surprising!!

Sounds more like a firmware/ hardware problem than an SD problem. Remember Windows ready boost can use your flash drives as RAM and they don't seem to die nearly as fast.

Also why is the power outage resume function using the SD?! They should be storing that information on an internal buffer with independent battery backup. some SRAM and a coin battery are peanuts to the BOM.

[AndyL]

I'm not sure what the issue is - not near motors, or not very, about 8". Heat could be - it's 3" below a 90°c plate, but I've never noticed one felt hot

It's Chinese hardware. It's not supposed to make sense they take off the shelf designs, repurpose them in ways they weren't intended for and add features!

I'm not 100% on why they fail, I know when they're going windows starts complaining they need to be repaired but doesn't find anything to fix. Then a while later I'll throw one in a printer and it will warm up run about 30 lines of gcode stop dead and never print from that card again I've tried usb extension cords, in case it's contacts...

[firebane]

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I'm not sure what the issue is - not near motors, or not very, about 8". Heat could be - it's 3" below a 90°c plate, but I've never noticed one felt hot

It's Chinese hardware. It's not supposed to make sense they take off the shelf designs, repurpose them in ways they weren't intended for and add features!

I'm not 100% on why they fail, I know when they're going windows starts complaining they need to be repaired but doesn't find anything to fix. Then a while later I'll throw one in a printer and it will warm up run about 30 lines of gcode stop dead and never print from that card again I've tried usb extension cords, in case it's contacts...

Would you be able to hook up an external hard drive? Some of the smaller ones only require a single usb for power.

[AndyL]

That's an interesting question. Not sure. Could probably find an old hard drive and partition to 32gb...

I'm curious about the wifi SD cards now - that'd let me set them up as a file server means no plugging in and unplugging. Makes workflow a little nicer