Predict Tool changes and start heat-up beforehand
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I recently added a second extruder to my printer and I noticed that the printer is waiting for the tool to reach the set temperature after each tool change. Is there a way to predict when tool changes will occur (maybe using the simulate print feature?) and start the heat-up process such that it is ready around the time the tool change happens?
Is this a feature yet? Unfortunately, I could not find much regarding this issue online.
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It's not a feature yet, although I hope to introduce it eventually pn the Duet 3 series (the older Duets have insufficient RAM).
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@dc42 Thank you for the quick reply
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BTW some slicers (e.g. Cura) already do this.
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@dc42 That is interesting, I guess I will give Cura a try.
I really thought about your previous comment and how the duet2 has not enough ram for such a feature.
I am not very familiar with the hardware limitations of the duet boards but this is how I would do it:- When simulating the print add a comment to the end of each line with the time at which this command is executed during simulation
- Measure the time it takes for each tool to warm up during the initial heat-up (when the print starts)
- Parse the gcode file line by line until we find a Tn command
- Parse the gcode file backwards, line by line (starting from the last character in each line until we find the ';') starting in the current line (where we found the Tn)
- If we find a timestamp at the end of a line such that the distance from this timestamp to the one at the tool change command is greater than the tool heat-up time, insert the gcode command to start heating up the tool in this line
I am not sure if this is a viable method.