Built-in Calibration Tools  

RE: Built-in Calibration Tools

Is it really that hard to add useful tools??

Don't know but I'm sure their software dev focus right now is on the Core ONE firmware and whatever is needed in Prusaslicer to support it.

Not saying it wouldn't be nice to have this stuff built into PS, I'm sure I would use it. But as long as I can download temp towers and other calibration models easily, I'm okay and I'd rather they focus on fixing the issues reported on Github (such as the many first layer issues that at least in my hands make the "always perfect" promise a bad joke). IMHO, they've overdone adding features in lieu of getting the basics stabilized. After so many years still no way to draw straight seam lines, for example...

RE:

There are always new products. There's little excuse to let these sort of basics in the slicer be ignored.  Like PA as well.

I don't want to run someone else's gcode for temp towers. I want to be using my own EM, PA, etc values when I run a part. It should not be necessary to download pieces of towers, stack them on top of each other with the printed temp values in the right order,  then set gcode values for the temps at the top of each segment.   I just had to do this on my MK3s and it was frustrating to have to go backwards with PS.  I'm not looking forward to using PS for my upcoming RatRig build.

It takes 5 seconds in Orca to do a Temp Tower, or Pressure Advance, or Extrusion Multiplier (Flow Ratio), or a serpentine Max Flow Rate test.  I don't especially care for Orca's interface, but the calibration features are light years ahead of PS, which has zero.  QIDI Slicer is PS offshoot, and it has some of these calibration tools.

If it weren't for Bambu and other CoreXY machines, it feels like Prusa would right now be announcing a MK5 that's a teeny bit faster than the MK4. I just don't see the aggression to keep up and get back to being in the lead.

RE: Built-in Calibration Tools

All these calibration tools were originally added in Super Slicer, the original slicer offshoot, they have since been added to Bambu and then Orca as they ported them from SuSi.  

Not sure what your problem doing it manually is, add stl of tower, slice, scroll to desired layer and add custom gcode at layer for temp or whatever gcode you want.  Takes a few minutes at most.

Alternatively use SuSi or Orca to do your calibration and then port the settings back into your PS profiles.  

There is no getting back into the lead.  Everything Prusa does slicer software wise is immediately ported to other slicers anyway so all these downstream ones get the benefit of anything Prusa does as well as their own changes.  Also Prusa has a lot more to lose if they fail to test properly and screw something up, something that doesn't seem to worry others as much.  So they are always conservative.

While I agree that Prusa's speed is glacial at times, they have ALWAYS been that way and have not addressed long standing slicing issues.  We have been waiting years for some basics to be fixed.   Always the new and shiny it seems.  Cant see that changing - ever.

RE: Built-in Calibration Tools

I don't want to run someone else's gcode for temp towers. I want to be using my own EM, PA, etc values when I run a part. It should not be necessary to download pieces of towers, stack them on top of each other with the printed temp values in the right order,  then set gcode values for the temps at the top of each segment. 

Not to toot my own horn too loudly but in my popular temp tower download https://www.printables.com/model/39810 I include preconfigured 3mf files with the necessary temp changes so you don't have to print gcode files. I have also uploaded an OpenSCAD script https://www.printables.com/model/216967 that allows you to generate temp towers with your own temperature range and stepchanges and it generates the necessary custom gcode for simple copy-paste configuration. Not as simple as having it in PS but certainly lets you run a temp tower with little effort.

RE:

Too many Prusa Slicer apologists. Within Prusa and without.

My problem with lack of temp towers and max flow rate is that I have to waste time doing something manually that's been proven to be unnecessary.  It's 5 minutes instead of 5 seconds of clicking one button.  I run a LOT of different materials and do testing and printing of a wide variety that I optimize.  PrusaSlicer just slows everything down.  Hunt for a model, build it, pick settings at each layer.  Just a waste of time.  If your life consists of printing PLA, great.  I don't.

Why did fast printers nearly kill Prusa? Because they were fast and people prefer 2 hrs to print a part rather than 7 hrs. Speed and ease matter.

I'm more concerned about when I complete my RatRig IDEX.  PS is unfortunately the preferred slicer and the only one officially supported.  I'll have to build custom profiles for every material and I currently have 166 different spools of filament from PLA up to PPS and everything in between that I run on my CoreXY with active heating.

I'd 100% move to Orca for calibrations for my aging but reliable Mk3s, except temp towers from Orca repeatedly generate M112 emergency stop failures a few layers in.  It incorrectly reports a failed thermistor. Which, of course, there isn't. I guess I'll try SuperSlicer with my Mk3S, even though the temp towers in SS are narrow and less useful.

As for pressure advance, max flow rate, extrusion multiplier...they are simply not there.  I have learned more in the past year tweaking filaments on my CoreXY, using QIDI Slicer and Orca, for best results, than I did in the prior 5 yrs on PS with my Mk3s.  It's only recently I discovered that my limitations were caused by missing features in PS that enable me to dial in Voron Cubes and complex functional printer parts. Some of my filaments are far to expensive to waste printing part after part by trial and error because PS lacks these things.

Oh joy - I'll get to add gcode just to run Klipper pressure advance. As opposed to clicking a button to run a PA tower or grid.