Ultimaker S7 won't pause at height [SOLVED]

[MBoffin 7]

I've used a Pause At Height instruction before on my U3 and it always worked fine. I now have an S7 and am trying to get it to pause at a specific layer. However, it seems to just totally ignore the instructions. Just to really test, I tried a print with 5 different Pause At Height instructions, each using a different "method" setting, and each at a different layer height, but it ignored all of them. (Using Cura 5.3.0.)

 

Anyone have any advice on how to get the S7 to pay attention to Pause At Height instructions?

Edited May 19, 2023 by MBoffin

[MBoffin 7]

I forgot to mention, but the S7 firmware is 8.1.2 and attached is a copy of the g-code file generated, so you can see the g-code pause instructions are actually making it into the file.

UMS7_PauseTest.gcode

[MBoffin 7]

Okay, so I finally got it to accept a Pause At Height instruction. I had to connect to the printer a different way in Cura. If I just told it to "Print via Cloud" to my Digital Factory printer instance, it would ignore all the Pause At Height commands. If I chose the printer via Manage Printers and activated that same printer, and then clicked "Print via Cloud", for some reason it would accept the Print At Height command. I don't see the different between the two? But okay.

 

But now I have a new problem, which is that when it lowers the build plate during the pause, it goes too far and makes a HORRENDOUS grinding noise. And then when it raises it back up, it doesn't go back up far enough and starts trying to print over mid-air. 😕 So... yeah, if anyone has any idea how to fix this, any help would be hugely appreciated.

 

Here's a video of what happens right at the pause point when it lowers the build plate too far:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MT2Kh2y8zhbZ7ufpBYRZT3WIqNC5XHIH/view?usp=share_link

[tomnagel 126]

I noticed in your video that the bed first moves slowly, then it drops very fast for like 2cm. 

The culprit is a line in your gcode:
 

M84 S3600 ; Keep steppers engaged for 1h

M84 is actually the gcode to disable steppers. The Sxxx command is to postpone that.

Unfortunately, S3600 is not implemented in the Ultimaker version of Marlin. What happens instead is that the motors are disengaged until the next move. This causes the bed to drop uncontrolled, later causing the bed to be lowered below the bottom.

I also notice that your nozzle keeps extruding after moving away from the object.

 

In the pause at height window in Cura, there is a drop down box "Method". For UM3 and all S-line printers you need to select Griffin.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by tomnagel

[MBoffin 7]

8 hours ago, tomnagel said:

Unfortunately, S3600 is not implemented in the Ultimaker version of Marlin. What happens instead is that the motors are disengaged until the next move. This causes the bed to drop uncontrolled, later causing the bed to be lowered below the bottom.

 

Thank you for taking a look at and explaining that. I appreciate it. That makes sense.

 

8 hours ago, tomnagel said:

In the pause at height window in Cura, there is a drop down box "Method". For UM3 and all S-line printers you need to select Griffin.

 

Unfortunately, in that video I showed, that is the Griffin method being used. I checked and it does have the line "M84 S3600 ; Keep steppers engaged for 1h", but as mentioned, the gcode in the new file is ";FLAVOR:Griffin". Pardon my ignorance, but if I'm understanding what you said correctly, the Ultimaker version of Marlin doesn't understand the S3600 code, but Griffin does? Meaning, it should be keeping the motors engaged, but somehow is not.

 

I've attached the gcode file I used for the video (as opposed to the first attached one that had all 5 different methods used).

UMS7_PauseTest.gcode

[tomnagel 126]

I was told by colleagues that you should use the Griffin option, and assumed the M84 line would not be in there. I was wrong, I just tried it with in an internal newest version of Cura and the M84 line is still in there. 

Someone showed me a change in github that solves this, but apparently this has not been merged yet. I can't say when it will be released.

The only option I have for you on the short term is to manually remove the M84 line from the gcode.

 

By the way, Internally we have also found that sending the file via Digital Factory blocks the pause at height functionality. This is now an issue on the backlog, it should of course not matter how the file arrives at the printer.

[MBoffin 7]

Okay, good to know. I will manually remove the line and just load it directly via USB and see if that works. Good to know it's at least on the radar and will get fixed. Thanks for your help!

[MBoffin 7]

Hooray! Removing the "M84 S3600" line from the gcode and then directly loading the gcode via USB worked! It paused and resumed exactly as expected. Thank you again for your help!

[MBoffin 7]

Just an update on this. The latest version of Cura (5.3.1) now correctly sends Pause At Height codes when printing via cloud. I noticed it in the release notes, but have verified it with an actual print job as well.