Preheat suggestion  

Re: Preheat suggestion

Settings->Temperature-->Nozzle. Not the quickest but gets the job done.

Re: Preheat suggestion

It wouldn't hurt to have a quick-access shortcut to changing the nozzle temp. Such as for adjusting the Z height - hold down the knob on the main screen and you go straight to the adjust Z menu.
Similarly it could be nice if you, for example, did one quick push and then held the knob down to access the nozzle temp. Adjustment menu.

Also the menus could simply be smarter set up: If you hit load/unload filament (or the printer detects inserted filament) it while the nozzle is cold, the printer automatically asks you to set nozzle temp. Before proceeding.

Re: Preheat suggestion

It wouldn't hurt to have a quick-access shortcut to changing the nozzle temp

you're making a strong case for a pi with a frame-mounted screen and the touch ui 😛 at least then we wouldn't have to use the godawful knob.

Re: Preheat suggestion

You're making a strong case for a pi with a frame-mounted screen and the touch ui 😛

I personally don't see the real need for a touchscreen, the menu's simply need to more intelligently set up.
I don't mind the knob, since the only time you're accessing the printer is to start/stop/pause prints and maybe tweak a few settings. 95% of the time you're just letting the printer do its thing anyway, so a touchscreen wouldn't add much to the overall user value.

Re: Preheat suggestion

It would be a good idea when you select load it would automatically preheat the hot end and when it finishes loading it would turn it off

Load-> Select filament/Temperature - then starts preheating and beeps once the temperature is reached - Load filament-> Correct color ok-> Yes->Hot end off(cool down)

for unloading it would be similar to loading. All this is so you don't have to go to preheat, select filament and wait, then go back to load, load filament then once is done go back again to select cool down.

Re: Preheat suggestion

If you really wanted to, you could write a few lines of gcode and save it as a file on the SD card as your own filament unload / reload routine. It's something I'll get round to doing for my old K8400 printer where the existing load / unload routines leave a lot to be desired. So far I've only automated the bed levelling movements as a gcode file to save manually moving the head to align all three points on my old printers bed.


M117 Unloading PLA
M106 S255 ;Set fan on
M109 T0 S200 ;Heat hotend to 200C then proceed
M83; Extruder relative position
G1 E-100 F500 ;Reverse filament 100 steps, feedrate 500
M0 Insert filament, press dial ;Prompts to put new filament in hole and click dial
G1 E100 F100 ;Extrude 100 steps, feedrate 100
M109 T0 S0 ;Switch off hotend
M106 S0 ; Switch off cooling fan
M84; Disable steppers
M117 Prusa i3 MK3 Ready


IMPORTANT; I've pretty much come up with that off the top of my head - it doesn't use the filament sensor to trigger reloading. Not sure if the filament sensor has Marlin G-code commands we can use with it, not looked at github on that one. I've yet to get my MK3 so that crude example above is completely untested and I'm sure is not the ideal way of doing things. Someone with a MK3 and some gcode experience can probably poke a few holes in that, number of steps to pull out filament, feedrates etc. Don't try it unless you know what you're doing and don't mind the odd disaster in the process! Most importantly, don't blame me if it all goes wrong! 🙂

Edit - Just thought a bit more about the above example - it doesnt lift the head up, nor does it extrude much plastic to purge the nozzle once the new filament is inserted. So yes - just a suggestion of how a custom reload could be done, not an exact method!

Re: Preheat suggestion

I would like a beep or too once the printer reaches the preheat temperature. The same applies for a finished print, or is this in the settings and I didn’t find it?