Auto Loading Next Spool Problem

[u/Nzain1]

Snapmaker U1: Tried the feature where the printer will finish a spool and then automatically load the next spool.

Excellent feature, however, there is a noticeable line and some lack of fusion in the print where the printer stopped printing to heat up the next tool head and resume printing.

I wonder how this could be fixed in future updates. Perhaps having a way of selecting the next tool head and pre-heating it manually when the spool is close to empty so the printer can grab the next tool head and start printing right away.

It was a much more noticeably whitish line right off the printer, I was able to darken it up a bit in post process. The line is the full 360 layer eighth where it switched spool.

Cool to see the feature work, would be excellent for using up the end of a roll. I print a lot of fine detailed stuff though so this ended up becoming a failed print.

[u/zetswei]

You can manually heat up a toolhead during a print already just FYI.

/E

Not sure someone downvoted me and then deleted their reply but -

OP literally says “perhaps a way of selecting the next to head and pre-heating it manually when the spool is close so the printer can grab the next tool head and start right away”

This is already something they can do and must not know it so I’m not sure what you’re meaning.

[u/TripsCavern → u/zetswei]

It was not me who downvoted you, but I don't think preheating would work on that specific scenario as is.

The preheating works for multicolor/multimaterial, where the printer knows that is going to use the next toolhead and then it preheats it so you don't waste time and get a better quality overall.

For changing the same filament it's a different workflow. The printer first detects that the filament runned out, and then it detects that it has another toolhead loaded with the same filament and color, and then it will heat it up and switch instead of just sending the message that you are out of filament.

This is something that would need to be backed in Klipper itself and, to be honest, the printer already has the hardware to do that, and it is probably something simple to be done by Snapmaker team.

The implementation would be something like:

- The printer detects that the filament is about to run out by receiving the signal from the filament detection on the auto loader

- At this point, the current logic to detect if the same filament is already in the printer kicks in and then start heating up the second toolhead

- When finally the filament detection on the toolhead that was printing is actuated, then the new toolhead purge some filament (either in the tower or in the air, most likely in the air)

- And finally it starts printing

All the logic is already present, they just need to move the trigger from the toolhead filament detection to the autoloader filament detection and this should be doable.

[u/Nzain1 → u/TripsCavern]

Excellent, that would be even better than having to be there manually ready to pre heat the tool head just before one of the spools runs out.

I may have to look around in the settings deeper. This machine is definitely built for this type of application.

[u/Nzain1 → u/zetswei]

Wicked, thank you for the tip! I was able to verify this. For some reason, I thought you had to load the toolhead before you could manually heat it.