Filament Used vs Filament Required Discrepancies
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There are two cases (that I have run into) where the filament used during a tool change falsely counts toward print progress (based on filament usage).
Case 1 (What I used to use): The tool change script is written in the slicer but the slicer does not properly include this material in it's total filament used statistics. This is mostly a slicer issue but I could see it possible to implement a fix in firmware to adjust the totals. This may get messy though just because of the number of differences between slicers and the amount of processing the MCU would need to do.
Case 2 (What I am now using): Tool changes are handled by firmware so the slicer has no way of knowing what the total amount used is. This is fine if the firmware does not include these extrusion moves as progress toward the total amount of filament used.
There is probably a third or more cases that could cause discrepancies but I am not yet fully caffeinated.
I think it could be helpful if the firmware spit out a "log" file at the end that reported some print statistics such as filament used in each extruder (to help track spool usage), times, etc. I get that a filament sensor kind of addresses this, but it's nice to know before starting a print if a spool has enough material left on it or not. As much as I despise some of the $tratasys practices, the eeproms are nice in this sense. Maybe this is worthy of its own thread?
Lastly, DWC should not report NA for the time remaining estimates once the filament used has met or surpassed the total reported for the print. DWC should still be able to calculate estimated time remaining based on layer time and file progress. I will create a thread about this under the DWC Wishlist as well.
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I presume your tool change script has some sort of extruding move for priming purposes? It shouldn't be difficult to change the firmware to avoid counting these towards print progress.
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I presume your tool change script has some sort of extruding move for priming purposes? It shouldn't be difficult to change the firmware to avoid counting these towards print progress.
Yep. My pre scripts are empty but the free and post are as follows:
[[language]] ; Put G/M Codes in here to run when Tool 0 is freed ;G1 E-1.5 F1800 ;retract G1 X230 Y0 F18000; move to wipe zone G1 Y-75 G1 X400 G92 E0[[language]] ; Put G/M Codes in here to run after Tool 0 is activated M116 P0 G92 E0 ;Zero the new Tool G1 E40 F175 G4 S1 ;wait 1 second ;wipe moves G1 Y-38 F18000 G1 X230 G1 Y-75 G1 X400 G1 Y-28 G1 X230 G1 Y-75 G1 X400 G1 Y-15 G1 X230 -
I believe this is fixed in firmware version 1.19RC6.
