I’ve really been enjoying the ability to control my Snapmaker from my PC with the new version of software/firmware but today I found out that the Filament Runout feature failed with it. There was no notification of filament runout. The machine stopped and reset back to home and there was no easy way to resume my print where it stopped, like there used to be. Has anyone else had this problem and is there a known fix?
I was under the impression that it only work when you upload the file to SN.
If that’s true, then it’s poorly designed. I think they forgot to add this when they added the computer monitoring feature.
Curious if anyone’s managed to ‘chase the tail’ of a filament end to insert a fresh starting end mid-print. I just kicked off a long one and looking at the spool remainder, in hindsight might’ve needed to swap.
Printing from USB stick to touchscreen, directly. Guessing if I watch the endpoint dip down into the hole and wait just a few mm worth to poke the new one in I might be able to have only a slight extrusion interruption, but might need to get a little bit reacty to follow the head…
(A250, original rails and print head, almost latest FW 1.14.2 I think…)
I have done this successfully, however it can be risky. Sometimes the filament may not follow the path into the heartbreak when manually loading, which won’t be noticable until there is an extrusion gap.
If you printed directly from the touch screen from a USB stick, like you said, you should be able to make use of either the filament runout feature, or pause the print and perform a filament change by swiping left, then going to the nozzle tab, and unloading/reloading filament. Yes, sometimes the print can hang on pause, or filament runout doesn’t work, but I still think it’s more reliable than putting in addition filament as it runs.
If you didn’t print from the touch screen or this process isn’t possible for you, and you want to “chase the tail” as you say, I would recommend putting the new filament in just as the old disappears below the surface of the print module, and keeping pressure until you are certain that the new filament has been caught by the gears. Do keep in mind that retractions occur, and so let the filament rise up with them while still keeping pressure. It is also possible that once the filament is caught by the gears, a retraction will pull it back out so you might want to keep pressure until you are absolutely 100% certain this won’t happen. All said and done, you could be holding the filament there for 5-10 minutes depending on nozzle size and print speed, but that’s still better than scrapping the print if you don’t have any other options.
I think for best print quality the filament would need to be fused: How to Join or Fuse Filament Together
There will be a pressure fluctuation which will result in some amount of underextrusion unless you get lucky.
I bet with some practice if you know the end of the spool is coming up you would have enough time to fuse the filament on the fly.
Thanks; I tried, thought it worked, failed.
Got it gripped by the gear just fine, walked away thinking “well that was easy”. As @bobby4718 predicted…it didn’t actually make it to the hole in the heat brake below the gear, must’ve started printing nada within seconds of my “Mission Accomplished” moment. LOL.
Ah well, only cost me a couple hours and the last “layer” or two of filament on a 1/2kg reel. Live and learn.