SOLVED Cura Pause at Height Not Working on Ender 3 Pro

[VikeFan93 1]

What am I doing wrong that my Pause At Height will not stop my printer during printing. I tried adding a couple of pauses in a print earlier this week and didn't realize that the post-processing carries over to all prints sliced after this, but none of my prints have executed a pause since I added these. Initially the first pause was set to 4mm and every print since then has been much taller than that limit so it should have paused for each print. It seems pretty straightforward from the videos I've seen setting this up in Cura, so I'm quite perplexed.

I'm using and Ender 3 Pro printer and I have Cura version 4.4.1.

[tinkergnome 926]

It's perhaps still the same problem as mentioned here: 🤷‍♂️

 

 

[VikeFan93 1]

Thanks! Now a novice question, how do I determine what layer is the proper height?

I have searched and found how to enter the value in the post processing, but I can't find anything that shows how to find the layer height.

[Guest maht]

Thanks for the report. This will be fixed in 4.5 according to GitHub. https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/pull/6690

 

20 hours ago, VikeFan93 said:

Thanks! Now a novice question, how do I determine what layer is the proper height?

I have searched and found how to enter the value in the post processing, but I can't find anything that shows how to find the layer height.

 

You can use the sliders in preview mode to scroll through layers (the slider on the right) or a single layer (the slider at the bottom). Use the arrow keys to move up/down, or ctrl+arrow key to skip 10 layers at a time. Input a value in the text box to jump to a specific layer.

 

A (slightly outdated) video explaining this: 

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

[VikeFan93 1]

Perfect, I just got my first print to pause and it was at the perfect layers!! Thanks for the assistance!

[Guest maht]

Good to hear you have a solution, I'll mark this thread as solved.

[vanadium 0]

Vikefan93, what did you do differently? Still having this same issue on my Ender 5 Plus 

[mcmuffin6o 3]

Thread not solved, Vikefan93 what did you do??

[dchansen 2]

I agree that this does not seem to be solved. I just got an Ender 3 Pro, using Cura v4.8.0 I attempted to use the "pause at height" script so that I could change filament at a specific layer. Everything looked fine, no errors but the printer did not pause. The only indicator I had was that the timer had been at about 3 hours and when I returned to check on progress, I noticed that the timer was showing 2 minutes.

[GregValiant 1,112]

What mainboard and does it have a TFT screen (as opposed to an LCD)?

Edited February 28, 2021 by GregValiant

[dchansen 2]

It is an LCD, running Marlin v1.0.1 and I am not sure how to tell which mainboard it has other than to say it is stock and only a couple of weeks old.

[GregValiant 1,112]

This has been coming up a lot lately with Creality Ender 3 printers.  It's a firmware glitch with the 4.2.x boards and TFT screens.  I hadn't heard it happening with the LCD screens.  M0, M1, and M117 don't work because they send messages to the screen and there is a miscommunication in there.

 

In the Cura Pause at Height settings box, right at the bottom is "Gcode after Pause".  Try putting G4 S180 in there.  The other code will run, the head will park, the M0 will be ignored, the G4 will timeout the machine for 180 seconds (which you can change and make longer or shorter).  The advantage of M0 is that the machine waits for a button click.  G4 waits for the amount of seconds you enter with no way to shorten the timeout.

 

The mainboard model number is printed on the front of the mainboard.  The only way to know is to open the box and look.

[dchansen 2]

Here are all of the specs available.

It is an Ender 3 Pro, purchased at the beginning of this month (2021-02) with absolutely zero electronic or mechanical modifications.

It has an LCD and the only identifier on the attached circuit board there is ENH12864Z-1 VER1.0. It also has a quality control sticker on it with the date of 2020-07-06.

For firmware it is running Marlin v1.0.1 which has a date of 2020-04-25.

The mainboard is a Creality V4.2.2.

 

Since this thread seems to have been marked as solved... Is there a possibility of getting it opened again or should I create a new one? And invite at least Vanadium and Mcmuffin60 to join in?

 

 

[GregValiant 1,112]

The problem keeps coming up but your exact problem is different.  You can search around here for other threads.  It's fine to discuss it here but there isn't much help because it isn't a Cura issue.  I have an Ender 3 Pro and so does Mari here.  We tend to pay attention to the threads that discuss printers like ours.

I tried to chase this down for a couple of weeks late last year.  I ended up at the Marlin Github site and they basically threw me out because Creality took the firmware and made it proprietary.  The Marlin people are not happy with Creality.  There was one poster here (4.4.2 board by btw) who said that a firmware change fixed the problem, but he never explained what firmware.  I tried to message him/her but didn't get a response.

At any rate, the 4.4.x board coupled with the Thin Film Transistor LCD display has issues.  The problem lies between the mainboard and the firmware running the display.  I think your best bet is to go to the Creality site and try to get them to explain.  There are a lot of posts on Reddit about this issue as well.  I have not come across a solution there either.  The Ender 3's and 3Pro's being produced now don't seem to have the problem with M0/M1.  It was a 3 to 5 month run of production when Creality ran out of mainboards and (I believe) was throwing in whatever they had laying around.  Maybe they tried a firmware patch and it wasn't enough (because within Marlin there are specific callouts for TFT displays).  They don't say much so it's really hard to tell.  Your display is dated July of last year.  That's right in the period I'm talking about.

[GregValiant 1,112]

I don't know if you noticed this while you were searching.  I came up with a sorta fix.  In the settings box for Pause At Height there is a box at the bottom for "gcode after pause".  Enter G4 S180 in the box and the printer will dwell for 3 minutes (the S parameter is Seconds which you can change).  M0 restarts with a button click so you would be in control of the restart.  G4 is a timer and printing re-starts when the timer runs out.  Less control but it does work.

[dchansen 2]

I actually did come across that in my earlier searches, noted it and plan to test it out tonight. I was just hoping to find some solution to being able to use either that script or some newly modified variant which supports this apparent Creality change first. Thank you.

 

Also, I opened a ticket last night with Creality tech support so hopefully they will reply and reply with helpful information.

[dchansen 2]

I am still playing tag with Creality tech support but in the meantime I have stumbled upon a workaround. If I select BQ(M25) instead of Marlin(M0) it pauses as expected. Once you have changed your filament, or completed whatever it is you needed a pause to do, it just has the extra quirk of you have to go to the LCD menu and select "pause", even though you are already paused, and then select resume. I have tested it several times while waiting varying amounts of time in order to make certain that it did not auto-resume.

 

The M25 command is defined as "Pause SD Print" and as it happens, I am only printing via SD card at the moment. So I do not know if this alternative solution will work for anyone printing via other means.

 

Hope that it helps.

[GregValiant 1,112]

Yes, M25 requires an M24 to resume.  It never occurred to me that choosing pause (M25) and resume (M24) on the LCD would work.  Nice find.

[mcmuffin6o 3]

On 2/28/2021 at 4:56 PM, GregValiant said:

The problem keeps coming up but your exact problem is different.  You can search around here for other threads.  It's fine to discuss it here but there isn't much help because it isn't a Cura issue.  I have an Ender 3 Pro and so does Mari here.  We tend to pay attention to the threads that discuss printers like ours.

I tried to chase this down for a couple of weeks late last year.  I ended up at the Marlin Github site and they basically threw me out because Creality took the firmware and made it proprietary.  The Marlin people are not happy with Creality.  There was one poster here (4.4.2 board by btw) who said that a firmware change fixed the problem, but he never explained what firmware.  I tried to message him/her but didn't get a response.

At any rate, the 4.4.x board coupled with the Thin Film Transistor LCD display has issues.  The problem lies between the mainboard and the firmware running the display.  I think your best bet is to go to the Creality site and try to get them to explain.  There are a lot of posts on Reddit about this issue as well.  I have not come across a solution there either.  The Ender 3's and 3Pro's being produced now don't seem to have the problem with M0/M1.  It was a 3 to 5 month run of production when Creality ran out of mainboards and (I believe) was throwing in whatever they had laying around.  Maybe they tried a firmware patch and it wasn't enough (because within Marlin there are specific callouts for TFT displays).  They don't say much so it's really hard to tell.  Your display is dated July of last year.  That's right in the period I'm talking about.

This was me, sorry. I replied in that thread just now. After updating the firmware I should also mention that I have to manually pause when the print head moves out of the way and manually resume from the screen interface. I also started encountering layer shift issues though unfortunately... Is there any general advice you have for ender 3 pro owners that might fix some of my problems? I am a full time aerospace engineering student and would like to spend less time fixing my printer than printing with it, since I don't have much spare time as it is. I am tempted to give up and buy a quality machine.

[GregValiant 1,112]

I think this will work.

In the Cura Pause At Height dialog box there is an optional "Gcode after pause".  If you enter G4 S180 in the box then the printer will do the correct pre-pause routine, skip over the M0, and then "dwell" for 3 minutes.  In the G4 line the S parameter is in seconds so you can adjust it to suit yourself.  Once the pause happens the dwell cannot be shorted - the printer will be paused for the amount in the S parameter.  Make sure you have the "Disarm Timeout" set to 1800 so you don't loose the stepper locations.

 

In any pause routine the re-start cannot involve a G28 (Auto-Home) as that slightly changes the zero of all the axes (switch error) and results in a layer shift.  That doesn't always happen, but it happens enough.

[pkos76 0]

When in pause at height my printer is not dropping temperature

[GregValiant 1,112]

This works correctly on my installation.  This snippet is from a gcode with the standby temperature set to 199°.

M104 S199 ; standby temperature
M18 S1800 ; Set the disarm timeout
M300 ;Beep
M0 ; Do the actual pause
M109 S210 ; resume temperature

 

@pkos76 can you post some of the gcode from your pause section?  The M104 command does not "wait" for the temperature to drop.  

[pkos76 0]

I use m25 command because with m0 the printer not pause

[GregValiant 1,112]

Nice.

[pkos76 0]

So before the m25 command I will put m104 s0?