Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?
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@OwenD Ooo... that's good. I'm starting to see the point of the programmable gcode and Object Model now!
Ian
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IMHO if you need to store babystep value you are doing something wrong. Baby stepping is there so you can "compensate" for the bad repeatability of your Z probe.
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@Steve-Lynch said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
The point is, you don't have to go into the web interface to fix it if it's a bit off. for example, My CoreXY all have Volcano nozzles for the different parts I make for my products.. Say I run plate after plate of a bracket at 1mm nozzle size, then I switch to .6 for the next few runs... Being able to just run the same file from the card that I always use, and simply tune the print in one shot, would be awesome... OR: I use 3 or 4 different build surface types... I have one for Nylons, I have textured PEI, Smooth, Glass, etc... it's nice on my other printers to be able to adjust the "Live Z", or "Z offset" in real time. If you don't want to call it Baby stepping, call it Z offset, It's all semantics.... Just give me an "UP / Down" adjust for god's sake!
For reference, Marlin has the option to make baby steps persistent. Upon re-boot, it applies it to the Z offset, and baby steps report zero again until you make a change. The "back and forth" between the config.g and the printer is just annoying sometimes... Save Config, test, make a change, re-home, test again... Oops! It's a bit off, stop print, re-start again, and re-baby step it, then dial it in... in a production environment, anything that saves 2 or 3 steps is appreciated.Really, what would be the harm in allowing an easy way to dial in your offset from the PanelDue? I'm not asking for a strange function, it's a function in most other firmware.
I'm talking about an S0 / S1 option for "Apply baby steps to Z offset" if you are diametrically opposed to using this feature, don't enable it... For those of us who miss it's glaring absence on the Duet platform, Let us be happy!.
I'm running anywhere between 5 and 15 machines all day, printing about 30 different functional parts for machines, and I have to make a lot of little changes every day. This is just one simple way to make life a tad easier. My few "fun" machines? I don't mind messing with all the settings and tweaking... But when for example, (We're a small business run out of a building on my property) My wife, or My kids, or one of My employees pulls a magnetic plate of parts off to cool, puts a new one on, and re-starts a new batch, I don't want them in the Config file. Dial it in during the skirt loops, and let it go....
Anyhow, Hopefully you understand why I want this so badly.
Thanks!
I am not arguing against a permanent z-offset, I am saying that it is already there. In the situations you mention where you swap out a bed or a nozzle the offset in firmware should not change at all. You probe the bed, the G30 H parameter offset is applied and you are good to go. Your nozzle Z=0 should always be correct after doing this. Unless you swap the actual probe or use a different style of mounting the bed that parameter really should not change all that often.
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@arhi said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
IMHO if you need to store babystep value you are doing something wrong. Baby stepping is there so you can "compensate" for the bad repeatability of your Z probe.
Not always. Sometimes it's as simple as a different filament needing just a bit more or less squish for proper adhesion. Some plastics are VERY sensitive to minor Z changes.
Also if you're running removable plates, you can get some differences in thickness that need a quick adjustment that's at the edge or below the probe's accuracy range.
Z Baby Steps came about as a fudge factor for us trying to do hyper accurate things with less than hyper accurate machines. We're sometimes trying to do nano scale stuff with micro scale tools.
Ultimately, @OwenD has the right of it, as a work-around, put it in a macro.
Adjust Baby steps, two clicks, done. Can't get much easier than that, but I do think @Steve-Lynch has a point about it being in the Firmware as an S0/S1 option, defaulted to off.@OwenD - Nice macro ! Makes me wish I was more conversant with programming, just not one of my strong points. Have to rely on my good looks ... (NOT!) LOL.
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@PuterPro well the "different filament" - you put your z-offset in per-filament confing and you are golden .. as for different plates, if you are probing a surface (and these days isn't everyone? bltouch, piezo, ir, inductive, capacitive...) the thickness of the plate is irrelevant ... if you don't and have some microswitch Z connector for the holder then again, per-plate config file with offset there. That's my take on things, of course, not single way is the only way... good thing RRF3 comes with variable code support
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@arhi said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
..well the "different filament" - you put your z-offset in per-filament confing and you are golden
Yep. 'Assuming' one is using it. Neither of us know the OP's complete workflow ...
as for different plates, if you are probing a surface (and these days isn't everyone? bltouch, piezo, ir, inductive, capacitive...) the thickness of the plate is irrelevant ... if you don't and have some microswitch Z connector for the holder then again, per-plate config file with offset there.
What you say is mostly true, but I think you missed my point - we sometime are working at the edge of a probe's accuracy, and find that it's not enough and need Baby Steps to get it right.
Remember, this person is running in a production environment with many hands, including KIDS interfacing with the machines. He needs a quick and easy solution, and personally, I think he has a point that it should be baked into the Firmware as an option, defaulted to off.
That's my take on things, of course, not single way is the only way... good thing RRF3 comes with variable code support
It sure is!
We definitely need many paths, something that RRF is much better than it's rivals at providing. Now if only I was a competent programmer ...! -
@PuterPro said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
Z Baby Steps came about as a fudge factor for us trying to do hyper accurate things with less than hyper accurate machines. We're sometimes trying to do nano scale stuff with micro scale tools.
As a very long time user of RRF firmware and Duet products, I distinctly remember the rationale for baby stepping when it was first introduced. Which was to make small, non persistant adjustments on a "per print" basis if, for whatever reason the first layer wasn't going down as expected. The rationale has always been that if the Z probe needs the same offset correction for every print, then change the offset in the configuration file to make it persistent. On the other hand, if there is variability from print to print and the offset needs to be adjusted often, then use (non persistent) baby stepping.
I'm having a hard time understanding why people want to save the value of something that needs to be changed frequently. If baby stepping is made permanent, how does that help in all the use cases that people are stating? If it needs to be changed per filament, or per build plate or per "whatever", how does making the value permanent help?
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@deckingman said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
... how does making the value permanent help?
'Permanent' is a strong word
I would use 'persisted'.Some of us already do it, making small persisted Z adjustments once in a while, except that the current process is tedious, having to go through editing and uploading a config.g file.
Supporting an option for the duet to remember the last babysteps adjustment, as it does with mesh data, will eliminate that hassle for some of us.
As for the people that don't want the Z settings to be persisted, I am sure that this option will not be taken away from you.
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@zapta said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
'Permanent' is a strong word
I would use 'persisted'.The thread title says "Permanent" - that's what I was replying to.
As for the people that don't want the Z settings to be persisted, I am sure that this option will not be taken away from you.
Personally I don't really care - I wasn't thinking of myself because I never use baby stepping.
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@deckingman said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
If it needs to be changed per filament, or per build plate or per "whatever", how does making the value permanent help?
I agree that Baby Steps came about as per print adjustment, but I have to politely disagree with your conclusion.
Like everything in this 3D world, as times move forward, things must be free to advance. RRF3 is a far cry from those early days with thousands of changes and tweaks from it's introduction.
When Baby Steps were introduced we didn't have things like magnetically held interchangeable tools, print beds held magnetically with PEI textured steel sheets, as well as all the myriad of printer types we have now. I mean, who HAD a laser that could be switched in??!?
As someone who has such a lovingly built and amazingly personally engineered machine, I'm surprised you aren't more receptive to this small change. You've had to have celebrated many times as RRF matured and fixed problems you had with your setup, or added a new easier way to accomplish something, sometimes fixing something you didn't even know you had a problem with!
I see how some setups could benefit from the small addition of a software switch enabling the change to be saved past reboot or shutdown. With it defaulted to not saved, there's no impact for the average setup, but there's another tool in the arsenal for someone who needs it for their setup.
IMHO
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A side note for persisting data on the Duet, I wish that the duet would store its state, caches, etc in a separate and more 'transient' directory and keep the /sys directory the way the user set it up.
This will make it easier to version the configuration (I am using git) or change or clone a board.
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@PuterPro said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
When Baby Steps were introduced we didn't have things like magnetically held interchangeable tools, print beds held magnetically with PEI textured steel sheets, as well as all the myriad of printer types we have now.
Are you saying in the above statement, that there are now more instances where baby stepping might be used? If so, I agree. But I still don't get why baby stepping should persist? If there are more instances where baby stepping has to be changed, then surely that is more reason for it to be non-permanent?
As someone who has such a lovingly built and amazingly personally engineered machine, I'm surprised you aren't more receptive to this small change.
Thank you for the compliment. It's not about being personally receptive or otherwise. As I said in a previous post I never use baby stepping so it's largely irrelevant to me. I don't use automatic bed levelling, mesh compensation, orthogonal axis compensation, non-linear extrusion or very many other features either, but I understand that there are very many machines which do require these features.
I'm just trying to understand why people want something that has to be changed regularly to be made to persist or be permanent.
An analogy might be the extrusion multiplier for example. This is something that might be used on a per filament basis to compensate for varying diameter from one reel to the next. Should that be persistent or permanent? If so, then the extrusion multiplier set for one reel of filament would be used for every reel of filament, in which case it would need to be changed whenever filament is changed. So if it has to be changed per filament, how does making it permanent help? If it is used, then it has to be set or changed every time the filament is changed, regardless of whether it is permanent/persistant or not. The same applies to baby stepping. If it has to be changed per filament, how does making it permanent help? It still has to be changed.
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@zapta said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
A side note for persisting data on the Duet, I wish that the duet would store its state, caches, etc in a separate and more 'transient' directory and keep the /sys directory the way the user set it up.
This will make it easier to version the configuration (I am using git) or change or clone a board.
looking to linux and /bin /etc /usr/bin and so on doesn't sound like a bad idea, but it would be a big change, so not for 3.01. could you work around it with .gitignore ?
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@bearer, .gitignore would not avoid the spam in directory diffing (card vs repository). Same goes for copying a card for another printer or deleting the duet's transient data to get to a known state (which files to delete and which files to keep?).
I am not 100% but IIRC, the www directory is kept clean of transient files.
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@zapta said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
.gitignore would not avoid the spam in directory diffing
it would if you used git diff? as for copying goes %#¤ in #"%& out and getting to a known state, nuke from orbit, pull fresh duet stuff from web and clone your git stuff after?
But I do agree, cleaner separation would be nice.
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@deckingman said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
The thread title says "Permanent" - that's what I was replying to.
Yes, you are right, it's from the topic.
I believe that 'persisted' captures more accurately the use case of "save and use it in following sessions until I will set a new value".
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If users of baby stepping wish to have a one-click method to save baby stepping values, here it is:
First, you create a template-config.g This is where your master config.g that you would normally edit and contains your normal settings lives. It has no babystepping command.
Now, you create a real config.g in the sys directory that points to the template-config.g with an M98.
We now create a series of macros. In each of those macros you have something that looks like this:
; filename: +0.02.g M28 config.g M98 template-config.g M290 S0.02 M29; filename: +0.04.g M28 config.g M98 template-config.g M290 S0.04 M29; filename: -0.02.g M28 config.g M98 template-config.g M290 S-0.02 M29etc., and lastly:
; filename: reset.g M28 config.g M98 template-config.g M29Voila! Now you just have to select the amount of babystepping you have currently applied and wish to make permanent! It will be permanent until the next time you run one of these macros, and you can reset it permanently too. To make normal everyday changes to your config, you can simply change the template-config.g.
To be clear, this is a joke. To make this work for real you'd need to use M505 to set a different directory, because calling M98 would write the entire contents of template-config.g to the main config.g, precluding the ability to make easy changes! So instead, we would have to write a new override-override-config.g in a new directory that we then point the firmware to in the main congfig.g with our series of convenient macros.
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@bot said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
If users of baby stepping wish to have a one-click method to save baby stepping values, here it is:
Compare with Prusa https://youtu.be/2wh0bKPOI_o?t=43 , it even has the test pattern built in.
(just swapped nozzle to 0.5mm and had to go through the routine of babysteps adjustment, config editing, and config uploading).
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@zapta Presumably your nozzles are slightly different lengths which is the reason why you need a different probe/nozzle offset for each one. In which case, why go through the process of adjusting baby stepping every time you change nozzle? Why not make a note of the offset once established, and use a macro for each nozzle to set the offset? Then when you change nozzle, instead of playing around with baby stepping, simply run M98 P"05Nozzle" or whatever name you decide to use.
Presumably you use different profiles in your slicer for each nozzle. If so, then you could include a call to the relevant nozzle offset macro in the slicer. So you never (or rarely) have to use baby stepping. -
@deckingman said in Baby Stepping.. can it, or can it not be permanent?:
I'm just trying to understand why people want something that has to be changed regularly to be made to persist or be permanent.
I do see the value of the suggested feature. Especially for values that change regularly. I find myself babystepping down a bit for each print of the roll I am currently using. Yes, I need to compensate for that in the H parameter of G31 command, but call me lazy! (does everyone has to lookup if it needs to be added or subtracted?). What's wrong with a button that sets the default height compensation in config.g based on the currently set babystepping? I would like it for sure!
