M290 question - tool coordinates or machine coordinates?
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I have a basic question about the M290 (baby steps) command - does it change "machine coordinates" or "tool offset"? If only one tool is used then it would be the same, but I'm wondering if the baby steps are applied on a per-tool basis. From reading the documentation, I suspect it it not per-tool, but I thought I'd check with the forum.
I ask because I'm (still) building a multi-tool printer and it would be nice to be able to do baby steps adjustments on the first layer for each tool as it's printed, and not have tool0's baby steps applied to tool1.
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@mikeabuilder I did a quick test, set up a second dummy tool (I don't have any multi-tool machines). It looks like Baby stepping is applied to all tools, but is not reported in tool position, but is reported in the machine position (you can flick between the two in DWC by clicking 'Tool position' in the Status panel).
So I would say it does change the 'machine position', but doesn't change the 'tool offset', so it's not on a per-tool basis, it is global. I think this makes sense, as the offsets of each tool would generally be set against the reference point, and Baby stepping would apply equally to all tools.
Ian
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Thanks @droftarts. It makes sense, but does leave me in a bind when I thought my tool offsets were aligned to the same point, but observation of the first layer shows me they are not.
I'll ponder a feature request (baby steps per tool), but in the meantime I think I can add something to my tool change macros. tfree will get a command to roll the baby steps into the zoffset for the current tool (if baby steps !=0), and reset baby steps to 0. This will then allow the user to adjust the baby steps for the next tool and the those will be applied also.
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@mikeabuilder the baby stepping amounts are additional adjustments applied when converting from user to machine coordinates. They are independent of the tool selected and are applied even if no tool is selected.
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@dc42 - Thanks for confirming Ian's response. I'm definitely going to add a segment to my tfree.g macros to adjust my tool Z offset by the baby steps amount and reset the baby steps to zero. This way my users will be able to fine tune each tool as it's first layer is printed. Of course, this give no help if a tool is not used on the first layer, but subsequent layers should be more forgiving of tiny errors.
