Scheduling (or delayed start) prints

deckingman

Background..

I have my printer set up such that I can simply select a gcode file, hit print, walk away and come back when the print has finished. As well as the usual thermal cut-outs and so forth, the printer itself sits inside a "booth" with various sensors including heat and smoke running on an ESP32 which will cut power and send notifications to my smart speakers and 'phone if anything goes outside certain parameters. There is also a separate FE36 Clean agent fire extinguisher fitted to the booth. So from a safety point of view, I'm fairly comfortable leaving the printer unattended.

I also have an energy tariff that gives me less expensive electricity for 7 hrs at night.

I do not have an SBC but run stand alone.

Requirement

So what I'd like to do is select a print but rather that start it immediately, schedule it to start at say 2:00am. Or maybe have a delayed start of 'n' hrs such that if I set it to go at 10:00 pm but delayed for 4 hrs, it would achieve the same thing. That way, I could make use of the less expensive energy tariff and save a few bob. We do this already with our washing machine and dishwasher.

I've put this under "General Discussion" as there may be some external (noon- duet) way of doing this but maybe it could be a feature request for the Duet Guys to look into?

Thoughts anyone?

OwenD

@deckingman

I have a macro I use for that exact purpose.
In your slicer or start.g, use one of these options
I haven't used it for a while so can't be sure something hasn't broken with firmware updates

EDIT: Found an error in one of the M291 calls

; start_after_delay.g
; should be called from slicer start gcode or start.g BEFORE any heating actions
; Accepts four parameters

; X = a testing parameter to allow early exit after X loops
; S = number of minutes to delay
; H = number of hours to delay
; H & S times are added to achieve total delay
; R = start time.  Must have the format R"yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss" e.g R"2022-01-04T13:30:00" 
; NOTE: the use of curly braces surrounding time works in DWC but fails in SuperSlicer
; R{"2022-01-04T16:47:00"} will fail if used in SuperSlicer
; if R parameter (start time) is passed, H & S are ignored
; at least one time parameter must be passed
; e.g 
; M98 P"start_after_delay.g" H4 S20 ; (delay the start of the print for 4 hours 20 minutes) from now
; M98 P"start_after_delay.g" H1     ; (delay the start of the print for 1 hour) from now
; M98 P"start_after_delay.g" S10    ; (delay the start of the print for 10 minutes) from now
; M98 P"start_after_delay.g" R"2022-04-01T06:00:00" ; start the print on 1st April 2022 at 06:00AM

var LongDelay = 60   ; Delay between message updates if time left is greater than 1 hour
var MediumDelay = 20 ; Delay between message updates if time left is less than 1 hour but greater than 10 minutes
var ShortDelay = 10  ; Delay between message updates if time left less than 10 minutes
; at less than one minute updates will happen every 5 seconds
; at less than 10 seconds, updates will happen every second
var BeepFrequencyLow = 1000 ; frequency (low pitch) of beep play every var.ShortDelay when one minute left
var BeepFrequencyHigh = 3000 ;  frequency (high pitch) of beep play every var.ShortDelay when ten seconds left
var BeepDuration = 200 ; duration of beep in milliseconds (must be less than one second) - note 1 second will cause constant beep for last 10 seconds


; ************** Don't change below this line *****************

; Create a global variable to allow the process to be cancelled.

if !exists(global.Cancelled)
	global Cancelled = false
	
; NOTE: There will be a delay between setting this global to true and the macro/print cancelling
; as it may be called during a G4 wait commmand and can't be activated on until that finishes.
; To use, either send "set global.Cancelled = true" from the command line or a macro, or set up a button with an associated trigger.
; A separate macro may be hard to execute when the loop timer gets down to 5 or 1 seconds.

var FileName = "No file selected"

if !exists(param.X)
	if (job.file.fileName = "") || (job.file.fileName=null)
		abort "No print in progress"
	else
		set var.FileName=job.file.fileName
else
	if (job.file.fileName!=null)
		set var.FileName=job.file.fileName
;sanity check beep
if var.BeepDuration > 1000
	echo "Invalid beep duration - reset to 1/2 second)
	set var.BeepDuration = 1000
	
; sanity check default delay times
if (var.ShortDelay < 5)
	set var.ShortDelay = 5
if (var.MediumDelay < var.ShortDelay) 
	set var.MediumDelay = var.ShortDelay
if (var.LongDelay < var.MediumDelay)
	set var.LongDelay = var.MediumDelay

if !exists(param.R)
	if !exists(param.H)
		if !exists(param.S)
			echo "No parameters passed - exiting macro"
			M99
var Hours = 0 ; variable for number of whole hours from start time until run time
var Minutes = 0 ; variable for number of whole minutes from start time until run time
var Delay = 10 ; variable for delay between displaying messages
var HoursLeft= 0 ; variable for number of whole hours from current time until run time
var MinutesLeft = 0 ; variable for number of whole minutes from current time until run time
var SecondsLeft = 0 ; variable for number of whole seconds from current time until run time
var StartTime = datetime(state.time) ; variable to hold time when macro first called
var RunTime = datetime(state.time) ; variable to hold time when macro will end and print will run


if exists(param.R)
	set var.StartTime = datetime(param.R)
	set var.StartTime = var.StartTime - state.time
	set var.RunTime = state.time + var.StartTime
	set var.Hours = floor(var.StartTime  / 3600) ; calculate number of whole hours till start time
	set var.Minutes = floor(var.StartTime/60)-(var.Hours*60) ; calculate number of whole minutes till start time
else
	if exists(param.H)
		set var.Hours = param.H
	if exists(param.S)
		set var.Minutes = param.S
	set var.StartTime = state.time + var.Hours*60*60 + var.Minutes*60
	set var.RunTime = var.StartTime
		

var Loops = 0 ; used if a testing parameter X is passed in order to exit after number of loops has expired

echo "Print start time is " ^ var.RunTime

while state.time < var.RunTime
	if exists(global.Cancelled)
		if global.Cancelled = true 
			M291 P"Operation has been cancelled" S0 T3
			G4 S3
			abort "Deferred print cancelled."
	
	if exists(param.X)
		set var.Loops = var.Loops + 1
	set var.HoursLeft = floor((var.RunTime - state.time )/60/60)
	set var.MinutesLeft = floor((var.RunTime - state.time)/60)-(var.HoursLeft*60)
	set var.SecondsLeft = mod((var.RunTime - state.time),3600)-(var.MinutesLeft*60)
	if var.RunTime - state.time > 3600
		set var.Delay = var.LongDelay
	else 
		set var.Delay = var.MediumDelay
		
	if (var.RunTime - state.time) > 600
		M291 R{var.FileName} T{var.Delay} S1 P{"Print start deferred for " ^ var.HoursLeft ^ " hrs : " ^ var.MinutesLeft ^ " mins  - " ^ var.RunTime}
		G4 S{var.Delay}
	elif (var.RunTime - state.time) > 60 
		set var.Delay = var.ShortDelay
		M291 R{var.FileName} T{var.Delay} S1 P{"Print start deferred for " ^ var.HoursLeft ^ " hrs : " ^ var.MinutesLeft ^ " mins : " ^ var.SecondsLeft ^ " secs - " ^ var.RunTime}
		G4 S{var.Delay}
	elif (var.RunTime - state.time) > 10 
		set var.Delay = 5
		M291 R{var.FileName} T{var.Delay} S1 P{"Print starting in " ^ floor(var.RunTime - state.time) ^ " seconds"}
		M300 S{var.BeepFrequencyLow} P{var.BeepDuration}
		G4 S{var.Delay}
	else
		set var.Delay = 1
		M291 R{var.FileName} T{var.Delay} S0 P{"Print starting in " ^ floor(var.RunTime - state.time) ^ " seconds"}
		M300 S{var.BeepFrequencyHigh} P{var.BeepDuration}
		G4 S{var.Delay}
	if exists(param.X) && (var.Loops = param.X)
		break
M118 S"Starting Deferred Print" 
M300 S{floor(var.BeepFrequencyHigh * 1.2)} P1000
G4 S2

OwenD

@deckingman
You could also collect the parameters in start.g with something like this if you update to v3.5b2+
That way you can select any file to print and optionally delay it rather than having to edit the start code.
Alternately you could create some globals and manually set them for the delays

;check if we want to start immediately of after a delay
; requires RRF 3.5.2b2 or later
; code should be placed in start.g before any heating is initiated.
; un-comment relevant code section to use hour and minutes delay or to set specific start time

var hours = 0
var minutes = 0
var startTime = state.time
M291 P"Start after delay?" R"Delay?" S4 K{"Yes","No"}
if input = 0
	; start of code to use hours and minutes from now.
	;M291 S6 P"Input number of hours till start" L0 H24 F0
	;set var.hours = input
	;M291 S6 P"Input number of minute till start" L0 H59 F0
	;set var.minutes = input
	;M98 P"0:/macros/print/start_after_delay.g" H{var.hours} S{var.minutes}
	; end of code to use hours and minutes from now.

	
        ; start of code to use Specific date and time to start.
        ; Date-Time format must be - 2022-04-01T06:00:00
	M291 S7 P{"Enter start date time. Format = " ^ var.startTime} L19 H19 F{var.startTime + 3600}
	echo "Start time selected is " ^ input
	G4 P100
	var timeCheck = datetime(input) ; if the format is wrong this will cause an error which cancels the macro & print
	M98 P"0:/macros/print/start_after_delay.g" R{var.timeCheck}
	; end of code to use Specific date and time to start.

Edit: Forgot to use SET when changing variables
also forgot curly braces on M291 K

OwenD

It should be evident from the notes, but you should also set up a button or macro to allow it to be cancelled.
The delay macro should also be called before and heaters are activated!

if !exists(global.Cancelled)
   global.Cancelled = true
else
   set global.Cancelled = true

This will stop the countdown and abort the print.

deckingman

@OwenD Sorry - terribly busy right now so I haven't had chance to look at this in depth. But I will do. Thanks for your time and input.