Feature Request - Material Remaining for 3rd Party Materials

[Morandir 3]

I'd love to be able to manually input an estimate of material remaining when I add or change materials.  I've got empty spool weights and a good sense of the density, so it is easy to estimate how much material I have left.  I'd like to be able to enter that under that Material 1/2 settings and then have an the system subtract how much each extruder has used from that number.  Would give me a live estimate of my remaining material even when I don't have a roll of NFC controlled material available.  Thanks!

-M

[Smithy 1,144]

You can already do that, but only manually. After slicing you get the estimated amount of filament which will be used.

 

Management of remaining material if non-NFC spools cannot work, because the printer/Cura don't know which spool you have currently loaded. So with such a function, you would get the possibility to enter your estimated remaining material, the slicer knows how much it will use and then you get back the remaining after the print. But this cannot be saved somewhere. So it is the same when you subtract the amount of filament from your spool weight.

 

Or did I miss something?

[Morandir 3]

You're right in that I could track it manually on a spreadsheet/paper based on Cura estimate. However I'm not the only one using the printer, just its caretaker.  As you noted, it's the saving of the information to track it that would be useful. 

 

I imagine adding a selection under the Material X setting, it has two lines: Estimated Material Remaining and Manual Filament Remaining Input options.  You scroll to the Manual Input, and then scroll to the number of meters remaining in my filament.  Then after a few prints, you can navigate to that setting again again, and it would have a Estimated Material Remaining display the number (Input - Used).

[Smithy 1,144]

I understand what you mean and what you need, but I guess it will be impossible to implement it. The reason is, that if implemented in that way, Cura or the printer cannot distinguish between different spools of filament. So it would count from the same setting if you change the spool. So it would only work if you don't change the spool and if you need to change the spool you have to reenter everything again for the new spool and lose the values for the previous one. Only if you create for every spool you use a material profile, it could work.

 

From the handling, I think it is easier to use a spreadsheet, but this is just my opinion.

[Morandir 3]

" So it would count from the same setting if you change the spool. So it would only work if you don't change the spool and if you need to change the spool you have to reenter everything again for the new spool and lose the values for the previous one. "

I would be perfectly happy with this behavior.

 

Only an estimate, and a manual one at that.  Spreadsheet would never happen as I have 10+ ppl printing over the network to one printer.  It would be nice to have that estimate, even though I know it would be wrong if the filament gets removed or changed.  As I'm the main person to do it, it would give me a helpful tool.

 

Thanks for seeking to understand.  If there's a feature list somewhere, I imagine it to be straightforward to implement (we always do, don't we), so I think it's worth being suggested for the list.

 

-M

 

(p.s. I'm really curious to see what you make of the [bug] post that got me to log on to begin with....)

[Smithy 1,144]

28 minutes ago, Morandir said:

Only an estimate, and a manual one at that.  Spreadsheet would never happen as I have 10+ ppl printing over the network to one printer.  It would be nice to have that estimate, even though I know it would be wrong if the filament gets removed or changed.  As I'm the main person to do it, it would give me a helpful tool.

 

Ahh wait, this could be a problem because I assume that these people have their own installation of Cura on their workstation, right? The feature we talked about would be a function of Cura, so a local feature and you would need a centralized function to know when you have to change the spool.

 

So this has to be a function of the printer and Cura should only manage it and update the values in the printer. Would be very printer specific and I guess, but I don't know the roadmap of Ultimaker, this feature will never come.

 

[Morandir 3]

I think I see your point.  It really should be a [Firmware} request as it's would be a feature on the printer, not within Cura itself.  On our end we think of them as one and the same.

 

Should I post a request in the [Firmware] section?

Edited January 6, 2019 by Morandir

[Smithy 1,144]

No, I think it is ok here because you need both, Cura for managing and displaying and the printer software to keep track of the values. 

[Morandir 3]

Thought about this again the other day.  If the machine firmware simply allowed you to input and store a number for filament available.  That number would then be decremented by the linear travel of the feed motor.  As simple as Store X and Subtract Y.  No need for Cura at all.  Yes you'd manually have to look at the machine, but that's what I'm doing already so it would fit right in and be very helpful when using 3rd party filament.

 

Thanks for discussing.  Hopefully it's something that could exist.