Duet 2 Maestro + Quadfusion Dev Here: Halp?

streamliner

Hey All -- I hope that you're all well. Well, it was a bit arduous tracking down all the parts, making the required modifications, etc... but I now have a fully mounted, strain relieved, quadfusion head. The single thing that is not functional at this moment are my part cooling fans, and I believe it is simply a misunderstanding on my part, and, well.... everyone else working on this project.

In the QuadFusion setup, the concept requires one central always on heatsink cooling fan, and two side mounted part cooling fans... the configuration M3D currently has on GitHub, however, simply does not make sense or seem to work as it should. Here's the Fan Section:

; Fans
M106 P0 S0.3 I0 F500 H-1 ; Set fan 0 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned off
M106 P1 S1 I0 F500 H1 T45 ; Set fan 1 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned on
M106 P2 S1 I0 F500 H1 T45 ; Set fan 2 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned on

I have searched the documentation, attempted to understand the purpose of this, and how it works for them.... i'm starting to think perhaps something just hasn't been updated.

Here's the way I would like to set up my fans:

I have two 24v part cooling fans plugged in to Fan0 and Fan1; I would like for these to be controlled with gcode commands. I have my heatsink fan on the Always On Fan port. Everything is set for 24V.

Here are a few things I notice:

The Always On Fan doesn't actually come on unless I turn the heater on and wait about 10-15 seconds. The part cooling fans do not respond to gcode; I had planned to control with gcode, as mentioned above, but... I honestly am not sure what's going on. I have checked and re-checked my wiring. Any ideas?

streamliner

I've found the posts regarding using Fan1 for the hotend and Fan0 for the cooling fan(I tested it with one of the cooling fans). The always-on fan did immediately come on, as opposed to what it normally does; start up a few seconds after the heater begins heating.

Can anyone please provide some direction on this? It is my last thing to resolve before cmyk color mixing.

dc42

@streamliner said in Duet 2 Maestro + Quadfusion Dev Here: Halp?:

In the QuadFusion setup, the concept requires one central always on heatsink cooling fan, and two side mounted part cooling fans... the configuration M3D currently has on GitHub, however, simply does not make sense or seem to work as it should. Here's the Fan Section:
; Fans
M106 P0 S0.3 I0 F500 H-1 ; Set fan 0 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned off
M106 P1 S1 I0 F500 H1 T45 ; Set fan 1 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned on
M106 P2 S1 I0 F500 H1 T45 ; Set fan 2 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned on

That would make sense if there was 1 part cooling fan connected to Fan0, and two heatsink cooling fans connected to Fan1 and Fan2.

Perhaps you should connect the two part cooling fans in parallel to the Fan0 output, and the heatsink fan to the Fan1 output.

streamliner

@dc42 That is exactly what I had interpreted it as, it just didn't make sense -- this is not the case for any configuration of the QuadFusion head. In its suggested and only current configuration it uses a single heatsink cooling fan and two part cooling fans. So.... i'm a bit confused on how we got here; this config is in every single configuration file on m3d's github repos at the moment.

Anyways,

I managed to figure out my fan problem; after removing the fans section totally my heatsink fan was working but I couldn't control my part cooling fans.... i had to set them with a freq. of 250 to work, for whatever reason... they are 24v creality-branded 40mm slim blowers.

That said, after I get some rest... the color mixing shall begin. Color Matched CMYK filaments are on their way for baselines as well... this should be fun.

Thanks again.

dc42

Blower fans appear to be less tolerant of PWM than ordinary axial fans. I haven't managed to find a 24V blower that works well with PWM.

streamliner

@dc42 Yes, I've noticed similar issues... although at this point they are responding totally normally to my commands.... Now, I wonder if you could provide.... well, the entire community with a bit of your knowledge. lol, I know that probably sounds like a lot to ask, but, well... it's really just about the best practices we should be considering for chaining together the mixing head... I am going to post two files; first, the config.g and also the file 'StartupToolSetup' that is called by config.g; these are the same files that can be found in the official m3d Repo:

https://github.com/PrintM3D/Crane/tree/dev/SD Card Structure/Quad/sys

Basically, we end up with an incredibly confusing setup in Duet Web Interface with this.... I wonder if you or anyone else could make some decisions about what we are doing here. I'm also learning that aliasing is a possibility; would that be a good plan for making the interfae make more sense than, say... 'Heater 70', 'Heater71', etc....

Thanks so much for anyone that is able to assist.
1_1533617726557_StartupToolSetup.g 0_1533617726557_config.g

streamliner

I'm going to kinda do a mental exercise here, hoping that it may help you guys, help me, to help others =P.... I'm going to go through the config for the toolheads and heaters a bit at a time; i'll post a code block, and then discuss it...

From config.g; Heaters Section

;Heaters
M305 P0 T100000 B4138 C0 R2200 ; Set thermistor + ADC parameters for heater 0
M143 H0 S120 ; Set temperature limit for heater 0 to 120C
M305 P1 X501 T1050 R2200 ; Set thermistor + ADC parameters for heater 1
M143 H1 S280 ; Set temperature limit for heater 1 to 280C```

There's nothing going on here that I don't understand, but it is still as far as I can tell the first declaration of H0 and H1 so I wanted to mention it.

; Fans
M106 P0 S0.3 I0 F500 H-1 ; Set fan 0 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned off
M106 P1 S1 I0 F500 H1 T45 ; Set fan 1 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned on
M106 P2 S1 I0 F500 H1 T45 ; Set fan 2 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned on

This is the fan section that I have since changed... I now simply have my print cooling fans on F0 and F1 and my Heatsink fan into always-on. The only setting I actually had to put here was a

M106 P0:1 I0 F250 ;set both part cooling fans to be gcode-controlled; rate change was necessary for them to function.

And then, the final lines of config.g calls The file above, 'StartupToolSetup'; this is the actual name of the file; I had to rename it to 'StartupToolSetup.g' to be accepted as an upload.

The contents of that file, all of which is quite cryptic to me is as follows:

; Tools
M563 P0 D0:1:2:3 H1
M567 P0 E0.25:0.25:0.25:0.25
G10 P0 X0 Y0 Z0
G10 P0 S0

M563 P70 D0 H1 ; Define tool 70
G10 P70 X0 Y0 Z0 ; Set tool axis offsets
G10 P70 R0 S230 ; Set initial active (230C) and standby (off) temperatures

M563 P71 D1 H1 ; Define tool 71
G10 P71 X0 Y0 Z0 ; Set tool axis offsets
G10 P71 R0 S230 ; Set initial active and standby temperatures

M563 P72 D2 H1 ; Define tool 72
G10 P72 X0 Y0 Z0 ; Set tool axis offsets
G10 P72 R0 S230 ; Set initial active and standby temperatures to 0C

M563 P73 D3 H1 ; Define tool 73
G10 P73 X0 Y0 Z0 ; Set tool axis offsets
G10 P73 R0 S230 ; Set initial active and standby temperatures to 0C

M563 P78 D0:1:2:3 H1 ; Define tool 78 (split 25% each)
M567 P78 E0.25:0.25:0.25:0.25
G10 P78 X0 Y0 Z0
G10 P78 R0 S230

I understand the intention; tools defined as 70, 71, 72 and 73, and 78 represent our separate mixing routines.... could anyone offer suggestions on making this more coherent in DWI? This is what i'm looking at currently =\

![alt text](

This could fall into the realm of DWI support, but I don't really know... doing my homework on aliases now.

Thanks All!

Phaedrux

You could use the S parameter for M563 to give the tool a proper name. The same can be done with heaters and fans in recent firmware.

streamliner

@Phaedrux That's what I was thinking... hmm. Any chance I can PM you or speak with you in another medium like discord/whatever really? I just have a few questions that I can probably use to solve some of these issues once I fully understand.

deckingman

@streamliner Just curious as to why you've shunned my offers to help. As a long term user of mixing hot ends, I've already been through what you are trying to do. Anyway, best of luck.

streamliner

@deckingman I emailed you earlier my friend; i've just been having some bad weather here where I live and mainly on my cel-phone for discussions. Things are back to normal now. Check your email, you'll find I've asked for quite a bit.

Thanks,

David

deckingman

@streamliner I'm currently working in the middle of nowhere with sporadic WiFi and limited phone coverage ( and even more limited time). I'll email you later but for the benefit of others reading this thread, defining tools that way may not be the best. At some point, you'll need to assign a tool to a part in order to print it in a particular colour. Most slicers consider a tool to consist of a single hot end connected to a single extruder. And most slicers only support a limited number of extruders - sometimes 2, some do 3, one or two do more. So assigning tool 73 to a part will cause most slicers to have a breakdown. Also, having too many tools defined can make DWC look cluttered, as you have discovered. There are various strategies that can be adopted but it's not really a duet issue so this forum probably isn't the best place to have what will inevitably be a long rambling discussion.

streamliner

@deckingman I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your help; the emails you have sent me are so informative and convey the information incredibly well. I really am lucky to have some of your guidance in this process. I sent you a single reply earlier, but will be absorbing the information and providing an equally well-thought responses and questions.

Thanks

David

3dmntbighker

@streamliner said in Duet 2 Maestro + Quadfusion Dev Here: Halp?:

Hey Folks,

I'm one of the developers that is currently setting up the QuadFusion mixing head from M3D.

Hi David,

Can you give us any information on the state of using Duet with QuadFusion? I'm very interested in giving my CoreXY CMYK capabilities, and I'm also not thrilled about the direction the "Palette" has gone with cloud based slicing. Is there any info available for a prospective adopter? Is anyone working on a slicer that can do CMYK without having an actual Crane?

dc42

I don't have a QuadFusion print head so I'm unable to help. @streamliner, can you help?

streamliner

Hey there @3dmntbighker -- I think we have spoke in the past. I of course won't utilize the Duet Forums for a 'Palette 2 vs Quadfusion' discussion, because it simply will just result in unfounded arguments.

I too was quite interested in the Palette 2; I thought.. surely this is the multi-material solution I've been envisioning. But, I think we can say.... well... it's not quite what most of us expected.

One of the great things about the direction that we've taken M3D is that we aren't tied to any particular closed tech, etc any longer... and when I look at the Palette 2, this is all I see.

We have went from a fairly closed company to our latest and future product lines utilizing:

Open Hardware -- This time in the form of the Duet 2 Maestro.
Open Software -- the dc42 Branch of RepRapFirmware(DuetFirmware)
Total Transparency; our community is taking the plunge with us.

As for slicing, I'm glad you asked; the future is truly bright here. With the latest updates to Slic3r and Cura, color mix slicing has become simple. I am personally developing a slicer; our community has 2 separate slicers in development, KissSlicer is becoming one of the most amazing tools we have -- check it out ASAP!

Tons of additional work is being done in the realm of post-processing scripts; 3 or 4 of these exist in our community alone. We're even investigating the 3MF format and, believe it or not, MS 3d Builder. In addition to things like pre-processing face groups in MeshMixer, using 3MFs for model separation data.... I have generated 3 or 4 fully functional workflows for color slicing; this isn't just simple layer color changes... i'm talking about full on, same layer change, multi-color(CMYK mixed) color.

Keep in mind that our professional printer line, the ProMega, is a CoreXY bot driven by a Duet 2 Maestro with optional quad and compound heads... so, i'd say you don't have anything to worry about. If you'd like, get with me and I'll provide you with some methods to begin experimenting with in terms of color slicing.

Thanks

David@M3D

streamliner

@dc42 You don't have QF head yet? Did @T3P3Tony steal it from you? You gotta watch that guy... I'll see if I can get Mike to bring one to TCT for you.

~David@M3D

3dmntbighker

@streamliner Thanks for the update. At the moment I use Simplify3D almost exclusively, but I'll be in touch soon.