Anticipatory fan setting?

[BobSisson 1]

Sometime recently I saw a slicer (don't remember which one) that had a setting that turned on the fan EARLY, anticipating the needed fan speed.  My fan doesn't run all the time, it come on in bursts, but if my extruder is moving fast, the fan may not come on in time to up to speed when needed.

 

It would be nice to have a setting that would Anticipate the cooling need and ramp up the fan 1/4-1/2 second early...

 

just my $.02

 

 

[GregValiant 1,351]

IdeaMaker has a Cooling Profile generator.  You can pick and choose what layer to turn the fan on and off or simply adjust speed at.  Myself and at least one other person have made feature requests on Github to incorporate that sort of thing into Cura.  We'll see.  I know they are busy with 5.0.

I've written a post-processor in VB that adds a cooling profile by either layer or by feature type (Skin, Outer Wall, Inner Wall, etc.) and it works well but can't be ported to Python 'cuz I don't know Python.

But anticipating?  That would be a neat trick.  Calculating exactly where to put the M106 would be a pain.  What are we talking here 15 to 30 mm of movement at 60mm/sec?

One thing that Cura does (that I know others haven't been happy about) is the gradual increase in fan speed to start a print.  A lot of fans have a minimum speed below which they won't start up and a line like M106 S25 is useless if the fan won't start to spin until 30%.

And that's another $.02.