Print Core LED lights

[MorganLaVey 0]

I'm pretty new to this whole 3D printing thing and have a (possibly stupid) question about the LED lights on the print cores. We have an UM3 and I'm sure the active print nozzle light used to be orange, whereas now they are both blue when printing (The 2nd nozzle is currently inactive)> What do the LED lights mean when they are different colours? I did google the problem but was unable to find an answer

 

Regards

[gr5 2,194]

I'm not sure but I think maybe blinking red/orange when heating or cooling.  Possibly white (or light blue) when at temp?  Definitely blue when it's safe to take the core out (around 40C or cooler).  I don't know the full answer.  Hopefully someone else does.

[tinkergnome 927]

5 hours ago, MorganLaVey said:

I'm pretty new to this whole 3D printing thing and have a (possibly stupid) question about the LED lights on the print cores. We have an UM3 and I'm sure the active print nozzle light used to be orange, whereas now they are both blue when printing (The 2nd nozzle is currently inactive)> What do the LED lights mean when they are different colours? I did google the problem but was unable to find an answer

 

Regards

 

I don't know, if it is documented in public somewhere. The lights have changed over time because of one or another firmware update. So don't worry.

gr5 is right, currently it's "ultimaker blue" in idle mode, (kind of) "glowing orange" during heatup and simply white during printing.

The file "/usr/share/griffin/griffin/led/controllers/headSlotController.py" is responsible for this behavior (you can double check it, if you connect via ssh to the printer).

 

[kmanstudios 1,120]

1 hour ago, tinkergnome said:

 

...simply white during printing.

 

Printing right now and just checked.....although it is bright enough to partially light the other nozzle.

[KindaichiShota 1]

Maybe blinking color lights are for cooling or heating the device and if you see white color then it means your device is printing.

 

[Marco_TvM 34]

UM3 blue -> idle state, Print Core can be removed (safe to touch)

Blinking orange -> heating up or cooling down (depending on the current temperature of the Print Core and the set target temperature)

Continue orange -> hot

White -> active during print

 

that is, if I remember it correctly.

[cjs 34]

May I do a feature request regarding the color of the print cores? 

Have been thinking about it for a while and I think it would be awesome to use the led's to make it easier to spot whats going on. Maybe as option to enable.

My idea would look like this: 

UM3 blue -> idle state, Print Core can be removed (safe to touch)

Blinking red -> heating up the print core to set target temperature

red -> target print temperature reached/ active during print

blinking violet -> cooling down to standby temperature

violet -> standby temperature 

blinking UM3 -> cooling down

 

What I don't know is how good the colors can be differentiated.

 

[Marco_TvM 34]

18 hours ago, cjs said:

May I do a feature request regarding the color of the print cores? 

Have been thinking about it for a while and I think it would be awesome to use the led's to make it easier to spot whats going on. Maybe as option to enable.

My idea would look like this: 

<snip>

What I don't know is how good the colors can be differentiated.

 

 

I will take the idea up with the PO (product owner). 

[WesleyE 14]

The difficulty with colours is that they have very different meanings in different cultures. For example, read means energy, love or danger in western society, but happiness, prosperity or even revolution/communism in others. We will have to check if this does not confuse or even offend people in the slightest. Especially with hot components.

 

I will keep it in mind, maybe it would be good to differentiate between idle and 'safe to take out'.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

50 minutes ago, WesleyE said:

The difficulty with colours is that they have very different meanings in different cultures. For example, read means energy, love or danger in western society, but happiness, prosperity or even revolution/communism in others. We will have to check if this does not confuse or even offend people in the slightest. Especially with hot components.

 

I will keep it in mind, maybe it would be good to differentiate between idle and 'safe to take out'.

There is almost no way to satiate every cultural reference via color. But it does belie the problems of making the color scheme more complex than it is. Also, most people of the artistic bent know about the color theory of 'cool' colors and 'warm' colors. If you see one nozzle is active and it is in mid transition, then you know it is cooling down while the other is heating up. So, what is the appropriate 'mid color' to use.

 

It is a bit of, 'ya gotta look at more than one thing' to know what is going on. Otherwise, put on a text read out and voice synthesizer, with the voice of "Hal9000" just to goose the nerves a bit.

 

Taking out the core, "I'm sorry Dave, I cannot let you do that...."

[Marco_TvM 34]

On 1/19/2018 at 2:03 PM, kmanstudios said:

It is a bit of, 'ya gotta look at more than one thing' to know what is going on. Otherwise, put on a text read out and voice synthesizer, with the voice of "Hal9000" just to goose the nerves a bit.

 

Taking out the core, "I'm sorry Dave, I cannot let you do that...."

1

 

I'm so tempted to make this work...

[kmanstudios 1,120]

2 minutes ago, Marco_TvM said:

 

I'm so tempted to make this work...

[cjs 34]

On 19.1.2018 at 1:08 PM, WesleyE said:

The difficulty with colours is that they have very different meanings in different cultures.

 

Haven't considered the aspect of cultures. As @kmanstudios it's quite hard to please everyone. You could make it customizable, but this can lead to be confusing. Anyhow I would think that red combined with this machine ( nice looking computer controlled hot glue gun) means danger in every culture as everyone knows how his burned finger looks like

The above color scheme may be to complicated and could be made simpler. I think at least you should make it system wide as the print core glows orange when filament is being loaded and white when it prints. 

12 hours ago, Marco_TvM said:

 

I'm so tempted to make this work...

Alexa support for Ultimakers ? 

[Marco_TvM 34]

10 hours ago, cjs said:

Alexa support for Ultimakers ? 

1

Food for thought...

But I doubt we'd have the processing power to implement voice recognition.