Single Material Mode - MMU3 with Prusa Mk4
From the MMU3 Printing Handbook:
"Even with the MMU3 unit mounted, you can still use the printer for single-color printing, also known as ‘Single Mode’. Simply slice the object with a regular MK3.5/MK3.9/MK4 profile of your choice. The best option is to have 5 of your favorite filaments loaded, so once you start printing,you can choose which filament to use via an on-screen menu"
So I've tried this many, many times and it will always print from Spool 1. I slice in the standard Mk4 profile with PC Blend. The printer loads the gcode and the MMU material selection screen appears. It knows the gcode wants PC and I have PC configured in slot 5. As soon as I press print it thinks I want PETG and selects spool 1 but uses the PC settings from the gcode for Temperature etc. Using MMU3 Firmware 3.0.3 and Mk4 6.0.1-RC1
I'm obviously doing something wrong, has anyone got this to work as advertised?
RE: Single Material Mode - MMU3 with Prusa Mk4
Got there in the end!
You need to use the Touchscreen and the Knob together - it does not mention this anywhere in the manual. Once you get the Select Filament Screen, Touch the single line on the left and highlight it (in my case "1.PC" below the GCodes Filament line, then press the Knob. This lets you select the correct spool on the right and press the Knob when you have selected the correct one. It will now ask you if you want to replace the filament etc.
I don't find this particularly intuitive and if you make a slip of the thumb and press the Knob at the wrong point it starts to print and then you have to go through the Stop and wait for it to unload cycle even though it hasn't started loading!
RE: Single Material Mode - MMU3 with Prusa Mk4
I was having issues with this too. I just got my MMU3 for MK4 up and running and upon trying to do a single color print which was sliced using the regular MK4 0.4 with IS (non-MMU profile), I sent it to the printer directly via prusaslicer / prusalink by selecting the "upload and print" option in the slicer and it automatically started printing with the filament in slot 1 without asking me for any intervention.
I manually stopped the print and restarted it from the printer itself since the file was now uploaded and at this point it gave me the option. And I also had to use a combination of touch screen and knob to get it to print with the filament in slot 5, which was want I wanted.
RE: Single Material Mode - MMU3 with Prusa Mk4
You need to use the Touchscreen and the Knob together - it does not mention this anywhere in the manual. Once you get the Select Filament Screen, Touch the single line on the left and highlight it (in my case "1.PC" below the GCodes Filament line, then press the Knob.
You can also get to this point by rotating the knob anti-clockwise: from 'Print' to 'Filament' to 'Back' and finally to the 'G-Code Filaments' section.
RE:
Is this going to be the normal way to Select single color filaments?
Or could this just be a "placeholder" method until the slicer/firmware teams get more customized in initial gcode execution?
I was expecting to see the MMU2s / MK3 style "select filament #" type menu. This new menu is slightly confusing, it is not very intuitive to "single color" mode options.
RE: Single Material Mode - MMU3 with Prusa Mk4
Slight addition to this discussion.
I used the MK4 - MMU3 profile instead of the original MK4 IS profile for a single color print and choosing the slot I wanted at print time. At the filament screen, I used the above procedure to override the default slot that the slicer set in the Gcode. This way I can use the MMU3 profile all the time.
RE: Single Material Mode - MMU3 with Prusa Mk4
That is A good idea, I ended up doing the same method, but pre-selecting the extruder before I sliced the model. Just highlight the parts on the bed, then right click them on the model menu, and select extruder #. The mmu will automatically select that extruder and go right to the print
RE: Single Material Mode - MMU3 with Prusa Mk4
It's easy to use the MMU that way as long as you only want to use 0.15 or 0.20 layer heights and PLA or PETG. That's all that is supported in the MMU3 profile. To use anything else requires a lot of custom profile work. I've done that so I can use TPU and PC with the MMU3 profile but if I want say a 0.10 layer height with Ultra Detail using ASA then it just so much less effort to use the single mode Mk4 profile and manually select the the correct tool at the print start.