Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???

SputnikOC3d

How does one go about merely telling the Tool / Nozz in DWC to just switch over to a Filament in our Filaments Directory ... if you've been naughty and not used duets precious LOAD/Unload utility.

Sometimes they / I fail at loading or unloading and have to manually intervene and I switch materials etc.

Id like to be able to create a macro or script that allows me to just tell the duet board - hey - switch over to this material .. without all the hassle of re-loading or re-unloading and loading again - a material.

Surely this must be possible ? Searched for hrs now. .. nothing.

fcwilt

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

Sometimes they / I fail at loading or unloading and have to manually intervene and I switch materials etc.

In what way do they fail?

If you have no filament specific load/unload files then nothing special should be happening.

Frederick

SputnikOC3d

@fcwilt

I defo have load and unload routines. My mk3s bmg extruder setups sometimes get a blob at the end of the filamnet and I cant get the material out.... have to take stuff apart etc ... reboot sometimes... or sometimes I just LOAD the material manually without the macros.

Truthfully ... Ive got some PC+ in the hotend now - with no filament selected and have no idea how I got it there without selecting a filament - other than I just uploaded all new filaments - config/g's and cleaned up all the macros - moved them over as zips from my voron 2.4 duet 3 mini - to the duet 2s MK3 stlye caribous ]

I suspect that the filament that was in the tool at last starup just got wiped out and renamed or deleted - and now I have material in there with no filament associated with it.

I want to print - not unload and reload. filament changes on this machine is a PITA...

fcwilt

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

@fcwilt

I defo have load and unload routines.

I don't know what that means.

Can you explain?

Frederick

SputnikOC3d

@fcwilt

I definitely have load and unload routines in my filaments setups... some examples

;==========================
; - 3dxtech PC/load.g
;==========================

M291 P"Please wait ... nozzle is heating" R"Loading PC - Heating to 270C" S1		; Display message
G10 S270 																						; Set current tool temperature to 270C
M116 																							; Wait for the temperatures to be reached
M291 P"Feeding filament..." R"Loading PC" S1 													; Display new message
G1 E70 F400 																					; Feed 10mm of filament at 300mm/min
G1 E50 F100 																					; Feed 470mm of filament at 300mm/min
M400 																							; Wait for moves to complete
M292 																							; Hide the message
G10 S0 																							; Turn off the heater again

;==========================
; - MH Nylon X/unload.g
;==========================

M291 P"Please wait ... heating nozz" R"Unloading Nylon X - Heating to 270*C" S1 ; Display message
G10 S270 			; Heat up the current tool to 100C
M116 				; Wait for the temperatures to be reached
M291 P"Retracting filament..." R"Unloading Nylon X" S1 ; Display another message
G1 E-100 F7000 		; Retract 120mm of filament at 7000mm/min
M400 				; Wait for the moves to finish
M292 				; Hide the message again
M84 E0 				; Turn off extruder drives 1 and 2

SputnikOC3d

my goal isnt to improve my load and unload routines ... which I can do at a later time.

I want the functionality of not having to physically Load and Unload - heat the nozzle etc ... in order to tell the board - to use use a certain filamnet - Pre Print - not during print ... pre print.

fcwilt

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

my goal isnt to improve my load and unload routines ... which I can do at a later time.

I want the functionality of not having to physically Load and Unload - heat the nozzle etc ... in order to tell the board - to use use a certain filamnet - Pre Print - not during print ... pre print.

Got it.

I don't use the load/unload feature.

I just change the filament "by hand" and then select the newly loaded filament from the DWC.

Frederick

SputnikOC3d

@fcwilt said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

my goal isnt to improve my load and unload routines ... which I can do at a later time.

I just change the filament "by hand" and then select the newly loaded filament from the DWC.

Frederick

Wait ... wuuuutt ?

Why do I have to load and unload ... obviously Im doing something wrong. I want the ability to do just what youre doing - lol wth ..

Diamondback

The currently loaded filament(s) are stored in sys/filaments.csv. You can edit this file by hand and restart the Duet to apply the changes.

Diamondback

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

@fcwilt said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

my goal isnt to improve my load and unload routines ... which I can do at a later time.

I just change the filament "by hand" and then select the newly loaded filament from the DWC.

Frederick

Wait ... wuuuutt ?

Why do I have to load and unload ... obviously Im doing something wrong. I want the ability to do just what youre doing - lol wth ..

Frederick probably just means that he has no code in the load/unload macros, that way, DWC doesn't do anything when "loading" or "unloading filaments, other than showing a different string in the interface.

fcwilt

@diamondback said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

Frederick probably just means that he has no code in the load/unload macros, that way, DWC doesn't do anything when "loading" or "unloading filaments, other than showing a different string in the interface.

Correct.

I only have code in the filament specific config.g file which I execute with M703.

The DWC creates the load and unload files when the filament type is created but they are empty and I leave them that way.

Frederick

SputnikOC3d

@diamondback said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

The currently loaded filament(s) are stored in sys/filaments.csv. You can edit this file by hand and restart the Duet to apply the changes.

Is this really the only solution ?

fcwilt

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

@diamondback said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

The currently loaded filament(s) are stored in sys/filaments.csv. You can edit this file by hand and restart the Duet to apply the changes.

Is this really the only solution ?

The solution to what?

Frederick

engikeneer

@fcwilt to change the filament DWC shows as loaded without running the load/unload macros.

@SputnikOC3d I don't think this feature is implemented by default (though I think would be useful!). Reading this part of the documentation:
https://duet3d.dozuki.com/Wiki/Filaments#Section_Changing_filaments
It seems you can put an M291 popup in the start of your load/unload macros to solve the issue, but then they'll be run every time. This may work for you, and you might be able to use some conditional gcode/the object model to suppress the M291 in certain states (e.g. printing)?

I think a command to do this would be useful though, similar to how there is one to set a tool to active/standby without running the toolchange macros. Likely just need to be a parameter on the end of the M701 (e.g. P0 to suppress load/unload)

fcwilt

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

@diamondback said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

The currently loaded filament(s) are stored in sys/filaments.csv. You can edit this file by hand and restart the Duet to apply the changes.

Is this really the only solution ?

So you want to run the load/unload code sometimes and not others?

If you are prepared to edit each file you could use a global variable as a "enable/disable" flag to control if the code in the file is to be executed or not.

Then you could have a Macro to toggle the flag or a pair of Macros to set/clear the flag.

Frederick

deckingman

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

How does one go about merely telling the Tool / Nozz in DWC to just switch over to a Filament in our Filaments Directory ... if you've been naughty and not used duets precious LOAD/Unload utility.

Sometimes they / I fail at loading or unloading and have to manually intervene and I switch materials etc.

Id like to be able to create a macro or script that allows me to just tell the duet board - hey - switch over to this material .. without all the hassle of re-loading or re-unloading and loading again - a material.

Surely this must be possible ? Searched for hrs now. .. nothing.

You haven't said anything about your machine. Do you have a multi-input/single output hot end? If so, then all you need do is define one tool for each filament and simply make the one that want to use active (one way to do that is send Tn where n is tool number).

If you don't have such a hot end, then you will need to manually change the filament. In which case, just pause the print, then change the filament, then resume the print. It doesn't really get any easier than that.

Just because the filament load / unload feature exists, doesn't mean you have to use it, nor indeed do you need to write any macro to bypass it's functionality.

SputnikOC3d

@fcwilt - Yes sir. Id like to just be able to "tell the Duet Board" - Im using Filament X Y or Z - without having to use the Load or Unload sequences ive created for each material - if I dont want them to run.

Sometimes there "instances" where ive found myself caught out with having used the change filament option - where it both Unloads Current material then Loads the expected new one and mid action there is a "problem" - Im going off memory on this as to why there is a use case for my request.

2ndly - as of this moment - in one of my printers - I have a loaded filament ... but there is NO Filament listed under the DWC and the current Tool0. I wanted to tell my duet 2 wifi - hey dude - I dont know what happened or how we got here - but you've got Filament/X Y or Z up in ya and use its config.g for FW retraction and PA and other such settings. I think I had the material loaded, then uploaded all new filaments via .zips from the duet min build and I blasted all the existing filaments and load unloads I had as I revamped them all. I believe that perhaps the loaded filament that was in the filaments.csv file - now no longer existed by that name ... thats my best guess.

All that to say ... ya ... from time to time Id like to have the choice to jsut merely use the drop down in DWC to tell it Im using Filament X - without having to Unload / Load or vice versa - and other times ... Id love to you my precious Load/Unload scripts ive put in their respective files.

@deckingman - sorry for the lack of detail. I know thats not helpful to the cause. Im a simple man - with a simple single nozzle extruder E3d V6 on this machine as a Duet 2 Wifi on rrf 3.2 [ hey its working - and if it aint broke ... ]

Im trying to convert over to FW retraction and such and better use of things in the filaments/config.g and hte functionality it allows in rrf3+ and I find myself woefully behind the times in my update and maint of needed fw files and setups.

I think what MIGHT be a lengthy but easy to make fix for my personal issues is to duplicate each of the asundry 10 or so filaments I use on the regular ... one will be the Original OG with full Unload and Load scripts included and another dupe - with just the config.g the same but the load and unload scripts ABSENT or with code that allows me to bypass nozz heat times - retract/load actions

Z2-3DXTech PetG-CF - Full <---- Printer name - material - Full Load Unload scripts
Z2-3DXTech PetG CF - NL <---- Printer name - material - No Load

Duplicating the config.g's and appending a note to the end shouldnt be all that hard I reckon

SputnikOC3d

@engikeneer - nailed it.

I feel like your feelin my vibe here. Appreciated. I'll look into the M291 aspect more and see if that produces desired result. Appreciate the tip.

It seems you can put an M291 popup in the start of your load/unload macros to solve the issue, but then they'll be run every time.

That would be just fine ... If i can select - Yes run full load unload or No and it will still change the material to the one I selected [ in the dwc - not literally in the nozzle LOL ] - yeah that works dandy

fcwilt

@sputnikoc3d said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

@fcwilt - Yes sir. Id like to just be able to "tell the Duet Board" - Im using Filament X Y or Z - without having to use the Load or Unload sequences ive created for each material - if I dont want them to run.

Then I suggest you resign yourself, for now, to using a global variable to control if the code in the load/unload files is executed or not.

For example:

; in config.g

global filament_load_unload = true

; in load.g

if {global.filament_load_unload} 
  ; loading code here

; in unload.g

if {global.filament_load_unload}
  ; unloading code here

;in macro Enable Loading

set global.filament_load_unload = true

;in macro Disable Loading

set global.filament_load_unload = false

Phaedrux

@engikeneer said in Filament Material Changes without Load - Unload ???:

I think a command to do this would be useful though, similar to how there is one to set a tool to active/standby without running the toolchange macros. Likely just need to be a parameter on the end of the M701 (e.g. P0 to suppress load/unload)

I think this would be the right way to handle it. I can move this to the firmware wishlist for consideration. There's also the option of creating a github feature request.