Introduction

The repetier-protocol was developed, to overcome some shortcommings in the standard RepRap communication method, while remaining backward compatible. To use the improved features of this protocal, you need a host which speaks it. On Windows the recommended host software is Repetier-Host. It is developed in parallel to this firmware and supports all implemented features.

Improvements

• With higher speeds, the serial connection is more likely to produce communication failures. The standard method is to transfer a checksum at the end of the line. This checksum is the XORd value of all characters send. The value is limited to a range between 0 and 127. It can not detect two identical missing characters or a wrong order. Therefore the new protocol uses Fletchers checksum, which overcomes these shortcommings.
• The new protocol send data in binary format. This reduces the data size to less then 50% and it speeds up decoding the command. No slow conversion from string to floats are needed.