IDEX "Smart" Tool Parking Position

Ray11

Hi, I am running an IDEX system. Currently, I configured each tool to park at the end of the axis during idle. It seemed like it takes sometimes for each tool to move from the parking position to the printing position if you have a long axis. I wonder if it is possible to set up a "smart" tool parking position depending on the Gcode. For example, instead of parking at the end of the axis, park the tool a certain distance offset from the print to reduce tool switching time.

Phaedrux

Is your parking feed rate very slow? Even on a rather long axis a fast travel move shouldn't take too long.

Ray11

I am using 6000 mm/min, for an x-axis length of 400mm, it will take around 2 sec to move the tool to the printing location and another 2 to the parking position. For 2 tools, this will be 8 sec for tool changing each layer. For a print with a couple of hundred layers, it is going to add about half an hour. If duet can check the print envelope I think this should be possible to implement with a macro.

dc42

Can you not use a faster travel speed? Without reading the GCode a long way ahead, it's not possible to identify where is a safe parking place.

Ray11

Then I think bumping up the speed should be a better option. Thanks!

bot

Using IceSL-Slicer you can detect the extents of the model and program a customized parking position in the gcode file itself. Though, you'd have to program this into a profile using LUA. The slicer provides the following variables to the GCode production script to use:

min_corner_x    float    lower-left corner of geometry to be printer (X coordinate)
min_corner_y    float    lower-left corner of geometry to be printer (Y coordinate)
extent_x        float    size of geometry to be printer (X coordinate)
extent_y        float    size of geometry to be printer (Y coordinate)
extent_z        float    size of geometry to be printer (Z coordinate)

Ray11

I also took a look at cura and it seemed it also provide the information about the model dimension at the start of each gcode.

;FLAVOR:RepRap
;TIME:3794
;Filament used: 0.249092m, 3.45331m
;Layer height: 0.2
;MINX:95.627
;MINY:71.772
;MINZ:0.3
;MAXX:184.783
;MAXY:166.783
;MAXZ:36.1
;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 4.5.0

dc42

@Ray11 said in IDEX "Smart" Tool Parking Position:

I also took a look at cura and it seemed it also provide the information about the model dimension at the start of each gcode.
;FLAVOR:RepRap
;TIME:3794
;Filament used: 0.249092m, 3.45331m
;Layer height: 0.2
;MINX:95.627
;MINY:71.772
;MINZ:0.3
;MAXX:184.783
;MAXY:166.783
;MAXZ:36.1
;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 4.5.0

Thanks, that could be useful; for example, to use G29 to probe just those parts of the bed that will be used.

Phaedrux

@dc42 said in IDEX "Smart" Tool Parking Position:

Thanks, that could be useful; for example, to use G29 to probe just those parts of the bed that will be used.

Already been done: https://forum.duet3d.com/topic/15302/cura-script-to-automatically-probe-only-printed-area