Pause at Z function

[mastory 44]

Does Pause at Z work with Printrun? If so, please provide a brief instruction.

I've seen it mentioned before, but I wasn't interested at the time and can't find the posting... When I specify a height to pause at, what behavior is to be expected?

Lets say I am printing .2mm layers. I want to pause at 1mm so I can insert masking on some support. I would assume that the UM would pause after the layer that completes 1mm of height. Counting layer 0, this would be after layer 4? DO I understand correctly?

It would be cool if along with "layer number" in the Gcode view, it also displayed a Z distance value along side of the slider. It would seem that a depth might be more useful than a layer number.

Thanks

Matt

 

[mastory 44]

Looking at the Gcode, it appears that the pause happens before the Specified layer is printed. If I'm seeing it right, it seems sort of counter intuitive...

Still wondering how it works with Printrun.

 

[illuminarti 18]

Pause at Z is triggered when it first detects a move to the specified height. So if you specify a height of 1mm, it inserts the pause before printing the first layer at z=1 or above.

I presume it will work with printrun... the buffer will just fill up and refuse to accept any more commands to print until the pause is ended. I would expect that printrun can handle that, since such a filled up buffer is a normal part of the printing process anyway.

The issue however is that I think the only way to unpause the printer is to click the button on an assumed Ulticontroller. If you have one of those, then you'll be ok - but then why wouldn't you print from SD anyway, and not printrun?

 

[gr5 2,189]

It would be cool if along with "layer number" in the Gcode view, it also displayed a Z distance value along side of the slider.

 

YES, DAID? LISTENING?

 

That would be a nice feature.

 

[gr5 2,189]

The issue however is that I think the only way to unpause the printer is to click the button on an assumed Ulticontroller.

 

That's not 100% true. I don't know about printrun but the print window in cura understands about the pause and you can continue on the pc using cura and it somehow sends something through USB to continue the print.

If I were you I would just insert an M1 very very early in the print gcode just to see what happens from printrun. Then abort the print once you know the answer.

 

[mastory 44]

Well, I haven't got an Ulticontroller yet. Those damn shipping charges have me procrastinating.

Ya, the button part is what I was wondering about.

I guess I'll just slice some small test item and see what happens. I'm not looking at Printrun at the moment, but I think the print button changes to resume when a print is paused manually. May be the same function when the pause is triggered by the Gcode... I'll give it a try and report how it goes.

 

[gr5 2,189]

Those damn shipping charges have me procrastinating.

 

What country are you in? UM is planning to ship from USA at some point. Not sure if ulticontroller and other "parts" is included in that plan yet. But I see makershed.com is selling the dual extruder upgrade along with the UM original kit (with UC) and UM2. But no UC alone yet. Maybe if you wait...

 

[mastory 44]

Been waiting. I'm in Michigan. I need to combine an UC with some other misc parts I'd like to have on hand to spread out the cost.

 

[mastory 44]

I can report that the Pause at Z doesn't work right running from Printrun. At least not the version that I have installed - which is rather old. I will update to the latest and report how that goes.

All the functions are correct except that Printrun doesn't pause when it gets to the parked position. It just goes back about printing as soon as it gets to park.

If the latest version of Printrun doesn't help, (doubt that it will) I'll just pause manually from the console when the head moves to park.

 

[mastory 44]

No difference with latest Printrun.....

 

[gr5 2,189]

Well it works fine from the Cura print window so why not use that?

Did you make sure there was an M1 command in the gcode?

 

[tonycstech 5]

Is there a plugin for CURA to pause at layer # instead of layer height ?

 

[gr5 2,189]

I doubt it.

Be aware that the layers in Cura start at 1 but in the gcode start at 0 so they are always "off by one".

Be aware that it will pause the first time the layer height is greater or equal to the height you specify.

If you print 2 objects "one at a time" a well written "pauseAt" plugins will pause both time you pass through the Z threshold but I think the one posted on the wiki might not have this feature. Certainly there is a "tweakAtZ" that will tweak both times you pass through the Z threshold.

 

[quicksilver 0]

That's not 100% true. I don't know about printrun but the print window in cura understands about the pause and you can continue on the pc using cura and it somehow sends something through USB to continue the print.

If I were you I would just insert an M1 very very early in the print gcode just to see what happens from printrun. Then abort the print once you know the answer.

 

In reference to "continue on pc using cura" can you tell me what action resumes the print? Once paused I cant see a button for resuming on either Mac or Windows versions of 14.07 with the basic print window type (printing over usb). The print window only offers "cancel print".

What am I missing?

 

[Daid 306]

Older versions of cura's print window did offer pause, but it was buggy and caused problems.

What happens in Cura's print window, is that the print window sees the M0/M1 GCode, and then triggers a pause internally instead of sending that M0/M1. Don't think PrintRun has this behaviour, but I'm using a 2 year old version of Printrun myself.

 

[han 0]

Using a PC or Laptop the feature resume after Pauze at Height is vanished.

The supposed buggy from the feature came from a USB timing problem which is easily solved by pausing the system for a second after resume print. (which can be added to the plugin)

For now PC users are obligate to keep using version 13.12 which works OK

Or are we getting the resume button back (PLEASE)