Same filament for multiple tools?
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Hi I am working with RRF filament assignment again and still can not understand why it is not possible to assign the same filament type to multiple extruders. Is there any reason for this and if not could it be changed? Or what exactly is the idea how to tell the firmware it has two PLA tools?
greetings
TC -
@TC The instructions (which can be found here https://duet3d.dozuki.com/Wiki/Filaments) state (quote) "Filament assignments can be only made for tools that have exactly one extruder drive assigned. This limitation ensures that the load and unload macros work with each extruder drive".
I use mixing hot ends which have multiple extruders per tool, so for that reason, I have never used the filaments "feature". But if you do have exactly one extruder per tool, then there nothing to stop you creating multiple filaments of the same type, e.g. "Red PLA" and "Black PLA" or whatever names you choose.
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@deckingman yes that is true but still I don't understand the purpose of this limitation. When I assign a filanent to a tool I want it to know the print Parameters and nothing more. Why should I even want to create filaments of different colors?
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@TC According to the instructions that I linked to, it says that the purpose of the filaments feature is to simplify the loading and unloading of filaments. If that is it's intended purpose then it isn't the right tool to for what you want to do. Why not use simple macros to do what you want?
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@deckingman You are right there are other ways to achieve it. I am asking also to maybe help improving the Firmware and if the purpose is to load and unload then still it is logic to assign the same type to multiple extruders
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@TC I could be wrong but I think the intention is to eventually keep track of how much filament out of a particular reel has been used. It that is the case, then each reel needs to be specifically and uniquely identified which might explain why it is what it is. As I said before, there is nothing to stop you using to the same parameters for multiple reels of the same type. You just need to give them different names.
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The filament management function is fairly rudimentary at the moment. I can see it becoming a plugin for DWC which would open it up to others to improve or have different options like the plugins available for Octoprint.
I'll move this to the DWC wishlist forum though because it's a good request.
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@Phaedrux thanks!
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Upvoted! This would be so handy to have - I really don't want to make duplicate copies of each filament just to use the very useful Filaments feature. Being able to set retractions, flow rates, fan limits etc per-filament is a godsend and I currently miss it very much. So much that I'm considering.... duplication
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@jameswood It would also be fantastic if the list of filaments that's displayed when clicking "Load Filement" was sorted alphabetically or something. Currently it seems to be sorted by filesize? Custom sorting would be even better, or, if we're wishing really hard, subfolders!
