How to make printers table stand in the middle of Z axis?

[Carlzberg 0]

Hello, 

 

My question is simple actually, i just want to stop the table/bed in the middle of printer.

 

Let's say u sent a job to the printer and it finished, bed goes downwards and stops at the bottom.

I don't want it to go all the way down. I want to set a Z coordinate manually so, when the job is done table stops there.

 

I did try few things, like trying to add custom "End G-code" and sometimes it works, table stops exactly where i want it to be but eventually it goes down again no matter what.

 

I know that, it needs to check where the table is with the switch at the bottom but it needs to do this in the beginning, not in the end.

 

So, basically i want my printer to be able to stop in the Z coordinate which i will call... and it will stand there until i send a new job.

 

I would be appriciated if you can share any idea/knowledge with me. 

 

Have a wonderful day!

[Dustin 150]

For which model UltiMaker?

[Carlzberg 0]

9 hours ago, Dustin said:

For which model UltiMaker?

Its S5

[gr5 2,210]

I think it cuts power and for most S5 printers, the weight of the bed is enough for it to coast down.

 

What do you want it to do if the print is almost as tall as the whole space?

 

I think the only fix for this would be to alter the firmware.  The firmware in question is in Python and is all visible, comments and all, on the S5.  If you are a programmer and know a little linux and a little python it's not so hard to figure out all the code.

[ahoeben 1,968]

I think a relevant question is "why?". Why do you want the printer bed to stay at that half-way down point instead of dropping all the way down? If the answer to that question is "because then I can see the finished model in the camera view", then here's a clever alternative solution for that:

 

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by ahoeben

[Carlzberg 0]

19 hours ago, gr5 said:

I think it cuts power and for most S5 printers, the weight of the bed is enough for it to coast down.

 

What do you want it to do if the print is almost as tall as the whole space?

 

I think the only fix for this would be to alter the firmware.  The firmware in question is in Python and is all visible, comments and all, on the S5.  If you are a programmer and know a little linux and a little python it's not so hard to figure out all the code.

It wont be tall that much ever. So i dont have any worries about it. I was hoping to see an easier way actually but if i have to do it with coding i will but im not sure how to… or will it be possible even with coding… Do you have any idea/suggestions?

[Carlzberg 0]

2 hours ago, ahoeben said:

I think a relevant question is "why?". Why do you want the printer bed to stay at that half-way down point instead of dropping all the way down? If the answer to that question is "because then I can see the finished model in the camera view", then here's a clever alternative solution for that:

 

 

I’m not interested about cams or etc. I will be holding the plate with the gripper integrated to a robotic arm so i need a space for gripper to get inside but the screen on the middle of printer blocks it so if i can set manuel Z offset for higher coordinate, gripper can easily enter that gap.

[ahoeben 1,968]

I think you may have to modify the firmware then. As @gr5 already points out, the firmware cuts the power to the stepper motors at the end of a print, so even if you move the bed to a certain height it may drop down again because gravity wins from the combined resistance in the z mechanics.

 

What you could try is add a long pause (G4 dwell), or a pause even to your end gcode after moving the bed to the desired position. But that will prevent the print from "ending', and I don't know what you use to signal your gripper to do its thing.

[gr5 2,210]

Note the G4 is a gcode and wouldn't need any firmware changes.

 

Do you want the bed to cool before removing the part?

 

Well it sounds like you or someone at your company has some coding expertise so I'll tell you some more.  You can ssh to the printer.  It has to be in "developer" mode which is set in the menu system on the printer.  Basically all developer mode does is that it allows ssh into the printer.  So it's fine to leave all your printers in that mode permanently (more than fine).

 

Once it is in that mode the ip address will appear on the display (which is convenient).  ssh to that address.  Username and password is root/ultimaker.

 

It's linux.  python code I believe is all in /usr/share/griffin

 

I've zipped it up before and brought it to my main computer and grepped through the code to quickly find key words and things to figure out how it all works.  You can also get the code out of the recovery images.

 

The motion controller is on a second board with an arduino like computer that accepts gcodes and there is a utility on the linux computer to send gcodes to it.  So it could be you don't have to change a single line of code and instead you can just send gcodes after the print is done.  There is an article about the utility on this forum here which does more than just send gcodes but here is a bit about which gcodes work.  It's from 2016 but almost nothing has changed in this article and the following printers are all basically the same when it comes to this utility: S3 S5 S7 UM3.