UltiTuner, a tool to tweak your printer

[Smithy 1,146]

There were many posts about active leveling or the cool-down stage, an essential feature of the printer to have a safe and easy experience.  But for more advanced users or users with special needs for their workflow, there was often the wish to have more flexibility with some configurations.

 

In several postings, you can find hints on how to disable the active leveling or shorten the cool-down stage at the end of a print job. All these workarounds need some Linux skills and how to work with (my beloved) vi editor. Not an easy task for someone who never logged in to a Linux machine.

 

That's the point where UltiTuner kicks in. It is a small helper tool to make it easy for everyone to tweak the printer configuration.

 

But first of all, some side notes and a big disclaimer:
I don't work for Ultimaker. I wrote this tool for my personal use, but then I thought, why not make it public that everyone can profit from it.

The software was created and tested with the utmost care. But if something goes wrong, neither Ultimaker nor I am responsible if the printer no longer works as usual or breaks.
**USE THIS TOOL AT YOUR OWN RISK AND RESPONSIBILITY**

 

So what can you do with that tool?

• Enable/Disable the active leveling
• Change the safeToTouch temperature, which is used for the cool-down stage. A much higher value shortens the stage to whatever you want.
• Clear the print bed message or awaiting cleanup after aborting
• Restart or reboot the printer
• Permanently enable the SSH daemon regardless of the developer mode

 

You can use this tool with the S3 and the S5. The older UM3 is currently not supported. Some things don't make much sense with the UM3, because you can disable the active leveling there from the menu.

 

If you are interested, you can find the latest release on GitHub https://github.com/SmithyAT/UltiTuner with more information and how to use it.

 

What is planned?
Clear the printer state after aborting a print job in an early stage (pre print phase) so that you can send another job without the need to go to the printer and confirm the message on display.  -> Done

I am also open for other ideas 🙂 

 

Thanks to @gr5 for helping with the beta testing.

[Smithy 1,146]

New version v.0.7.0

 

New feature:

Clear Abort, Awaiting Clean-Up

When you abort a print job in an early stage, so during the heat-up phase, before the print actually starts, the printer is asking you after the abort if you want to retry the job or not. In the DigitalFactory you see a message like "Aborted, Awaiting Clean-Up". You cannot start another print job until someone presses the button on the printer's display.

 

With the new clearabort command, you can clear the message on the printer's display, and the printer is ready again to accept new print jobs.

 

Notice that it is not working when the printer has already started to print.

 

You can download the latest version here : https://github.com/SmithyAT/UltiTuner/releases/latest

[ahoeben 1,990]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

When you abort a print job in an early stage

How about when you remove a print, but forget to touch the screen to confirm that the print is removed. Happens to me all the time.

[Smithy 1,146]

It is also possible to ack that as well. Was not sure if it makes sense, but yes, as you said, when someone forgot then it is useful.

 

I am just not sure if I should implement an extra command or put everything under one. Maybe it is hard for someone to decide which is the correct one. So when I fire both, one will result in an error, but the other one will be ok - and for the user it is easier. What do you think?

[gr5 2,234]

Can't you just collect both error messages and if one is successful and the other is not then say it was successful.  If both messages give an error then you can say the command was not successful.

 

[Smithy 1,146]

Yes, of course, that's what I meant earlier. I think I didn't express myself well.

[gr5 2,234]

Nice job @Smithy.  For other people out there: I tested the linux version on my S5 (version 5.7.2) and it worked well.  I have done a few prints and both features (disabling active leveling and not waiting for cooldown) work and have saved me time already.

[Smithy 1,146]

1 hour ago, ahoeben said:

How about when you remove a print, but forget to touch the screen to confirm that the print is removed. Happens to me all the time.

Your wish is my command 🙂 

 

Check out the brand new UltiTuner v0.8.0 with a new command "clearbed" which handles now both situations.

The "clearabort" command from v0.7.0 is not needed anymore and removed again.

[rachael7 74]

Thanks for making this utility available, Smithy! It has saved me a ton of time, thank you. One question though - if we disable the active leveling, does the machine use the measurements from the last probing or does it ignore the mesh and revert to only the manual 3 point leveling?

[Smithy 1,146]

I think the machine uses the measurements from the last 3 point leveling. It is also important that you do such a manual leveling before you start a print, just to be sure, the printer has the data. When you did a manual leveling sometime before, it is also ok when you haven't changed the setup, new glass or something like that.

 

Maybe I am wrong and the last multipoint probing is used, but I don't think so. To be honest I have no insider knowledge, I just tried to "reverse engineer" some functions. But I have turned off the active leveling on my S3 for over a year now and on the S5 too for some weeks and I don't miss it or see any side effects. 

 

My way to turn off the active leveling is also not a hack or something like that. The function to configure to use a "detailed" leveling or not is in the source code, but not implemented in the printers menu. So the S-line printers always use the "detailed" leveling and I set this to "never" to turn it off. 

 

It should also be possible to implement an additional switch to the printers config menu, but that needs a lot more studying the source code to understand what really happens there and I still hope UM will implement the function in a future firmware.

[rachael7 74]

Thanks, Smithy. I know it is a clean solution. I was just trying to figure out, if the glass was warped or something, if I'd be back to iffy first layers without the mesh leveling. But I guess if you're getting good results, it can't hurt to try and see. I definitely need to redo the 3 point leveling first though - I haven't done that since I got the machine 2 years ago!

[Smithy 1,146]

Yeah, basically active leveling is a great feature, just swap the build plate, change print cores and never think about leveling. But on the other hand it is time consuming and prone to errors.

 

I rarely print models on the S5 where I need the full bed size, so maybe when your glass is not so flat and the model has a bigger base, you get better results enabling it again. On the other hand the first layer is squish hard into the bed with the default Cura settings, so I think it should not make a big difference.

[spebf 1]

Very well done - works perfect!
I've been looking for this feature for more than a year.
Many thanks.

[Smithy 1,146]

I am glad it is helpful 😉 

[rachael7 74]

Has anyone noticed any unintended side effects from altering the cool to touch temperature? My S5 recently started unloading the filaments back into the material station immediately after the print, even when the profile has a significant park duration set. The only thing I can think of that changed was that I set the safe to touch temperature to 135C using Ultituner. I took it out of developer mode after and I even disabled the permanent SSH, and of course I rebooted several times, but it still insists on unloading the materials immediately, regardless of the specified park duration. I'm not suggesting a flaw in Ultituner, it does what it says, I'm just wondering if changing that setting could have had this other effect.

[Smithy 1,146]

@rachael7 I am sorry to hear that you have problems. I don't have a Material Station so I was not able to test it, but maybe the MS procedures are depending on the state of the printer like the cool down phase and waiting for cleaning the build plate. But I am just guessing, I have no idea when the MS starts unloading the filament, but could imagine that it depends on the end of the cool down phase.

 

Have you already tried to set the cool down temperature back to 60°C?

UltiTuner just edits this single value in a config/property file, no more changes in the firmware, so setting it back is like you never used UltiTuner.

 

[Super_paulie 13]

@Smithy, brilliant tool, thanks a lot. Made my workflow a hell of a lot quicker, literally saving me hours a day in waiting time.

One question though, is there a way to "remember" the last auto-adjusted height rather than have to set a manual level? my manual levelling skills are not as accurate as the auto procedure. Disabling it is great though, as it means my kapton sheets dont get wrecked with a red hot nozzle touching it repeatedly. 

[Smithy 1,146]

Hey I am happy that it is useful for you!

 

Regarding your question: If I remember correctly I read somewhere that the printer is using his stored values if you turn off the leveling procedure. The big question is, what is the "stored value"? It could mean the last value from a manual leveling or the last value from the active leveling. To be honest, I don't how the printer handles that internally, sorry.

 

But, give it a try. Do a manual leveling, if not already done. Then run a print job with active leveling enabled and after that job turn it off. We still cannot say which values are now used, but maybe the printer uses the last active leveling values and if not you have still your manual values.

 

It is hard to understand and to get an overview about the firmware as external person, and such special cases are even more hard to find. Maybe someone from the Ultimaker firmware team can give us here an answer which values are used in such cases.

 

I am sorry that I cannot give you a better answer at the moment.

[rachael7 74]

11 hours ago, Smithy said:

@rachael7 I am sorry to hear that you have problems. I don't have a Material Station so I was not able to test it...

 

No worries, Smithy, certainly not your fault! The materials are supposed to stay loaded, pulled back about 5cm from the printhead, for an amount of time defined in their material profile, called the "maximum park duration". It shouldn't matter if the build plate is still hot or not and it doesn't retract them when the build plate is cool to touch or when it is marked clear, so I did not think this simple change should have effected it. I was just reaching out to see if anyone had the same symptoms. I'll probably end up doing a reset on the printer and then trying the temperature change again to rule out that I did something else accidentally while i was in there. Thanks!

[Smithy 1,146]

6 minutes ago, rachael7 said:

defined in their material profile

Do you see the same behavior with other materials as well? I mean, maybe it is just the material profile itself, for whatever reason. And when you say the time is specified in the material profile, then maybe there is a problem.

 

Just an idea...

[duyle 0]

On 1/11/2022 at 12:15 AM, Smithy said:

New version v.0.7.0

 

New feature:

Clear Abort, Awaiting Clean-Up

When you abort a print job in an early stage, so during the heat-up phase, before the print actually starts, the printer is asking you after the abort if you want to retry the job or not. In the DigitalFactory you see a message like "Aborted, Awaiting Clean-Up". You cannot start another print job until someone presses the button on the printer's display.

 

With the new clearabort command, you can clear the message on the printer's display, and the printer is ready again to accept new print jobs.

 

Notice that it is not working when the printer has already started to print.

 

You can download the latest version here : https://github.com/SmithyAT/UltiTuner/releases/latest

Hi Smithy,

Don't you have a Windows 32bit version?

[Smithy 1,146]

@duyle Not yet, I was not aware that there are still 32bit windows computers in the the field.

 

But give me a few minutes....

[Smithy 1,146]

Here is the windows 32bit version:

https://github.com/SmithyAT/UltiTuner/releases/download/v0.8.0/ultituner-0.8.0-win-386.zip

 

[RudydG 62]

Smithy, the thing i miss on the S3 and S5, are lights and screen dimming after xx time. Would be nice to just touch the screen to light the leds, and they dim after xx time.`

I measured the power consumption of the leds (about 10w), so there is a real gain in electricity consumption.

Possible?

 

 

[Smithy 1,146]

I looked into it already, because it need something similar. I thought it must be very easy to switch the lights on and off, but I was not successful so far to reverse engineer the parts of the firmware. Maybe it works via the official api, but haven't tried it yet.

 

So, thanks for the good idea @RudydG, I will try to give my best to find out how to handle it. I think switching on/off and maybe adjust the brightness should work. 

 

I also tried to understand how to add a button to the menu. On the first look it looks easy, but when I dive deeper into it, it is not so easy anymore 🙂