print speed updates in every material?

[deutchbag]

I'm having trouble understanding why when I add a new material option for flexible filament and change the printing speed it then changes the printing speed for all of my other materials as well. Same happens if I try to change the speed of just ABS to something quicker. My PLA then picks up that same speed change... Am I missing something?

[DarthRevan]

I see this trip people up fairly regularly, myself included. Creating a new material or quality option with the plus buttons in Simplify3D doesn't necessarily assign your newly saved settings to the newly created auto-configure option. I have a Makergear M2 Dual, so any examples I providewill be tailored to my experiences with it's profile and how adding a new configure option works. I'll attach the default profile for this machine so we can all work with the same example file. (See below)

MakerGear Dual 2015-05-01.fff

(25.46 KiB) Downloaded 750 times

It turns out that when you press these add buttons, the only settings that will be saved specific to this new material or quality, are those which are already saved to the existing materials or qualities. So for example, this profile uses different extruder settings on a material specific basis, but uses the same print speed for any material. Print speed, I've found, is not a material specific setting. So if I were to add a new material or quality and change the speed settings, then save over my previous profile. The new default speed for EVERY material becomes the speed I thought I was setting for just my new material or quality I just added. Pretty confusing, I know, but I've learned how to change this. I've outlined how to set defaultSpeed to be material specific in the rest of this post.

To start, you'll want to focus on what settings are already material specific. These are found conveniently "nested", or indented, between an opening tag and a closing tag that will look something like this:

Code: Select all

  <autoConfigureMaterial name="PLA">
    ...
  </autoConfigureMaterial>

(Imagine that the huge chunks of other tags that are linked have been collapsed into the "..." displayed here)

So if you're decent at interpreting the settings names into actual settings in the software you can begin to see what you can edit and still have the "core" of the profile intact. Quickly looking at the settings for the M2 Dual, I've made a few images that help visualize what this means. If there is a green box next to the setting, it is a "material specific setting" and can safely be edited without worrying you're messing up another material's settings, as it won't change the mysterious "core". Here are the images.

MakergearM2Dual_MaterialDefaultSettings_PLA.zip

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Creating a material specific setting:
But what if we want to make other settings that are part of the "core" into something specific to materials? Get out your copy paste guide book and find the setting you want to do this to. Let's try printing speed. I found that printing speed, at least the speed setting that all other speeds are seeded off of, is on line 147 of the Makergear M2 Dual Profile. It looks like this:

Code: Select all

<defaultSpeed>4800</defaultSpeed>

To make speed a "material specific setting":

• select the line
• copy it
• paste it inside the auto configures for EACH material.

If you don't put it in each material setting, you'll not have specific settings for each material. This would result in any time you switch to the material that does have this tag nested inside, it will write over the previous value for defaultSpeed and there will be no way to go back, since the other materials don't load their own defaultSpeed setting. SO PASTE IN ALL OF THEM.

Also, make sure to paste the setting being added at the correct indentation level. I've noticed that each indent is two spaces. So if the auto-configures all start at 4 spaces and then the settings inside of them start at 6 spaces, you'll want 6 spaces in front of the setting you add. This is pretty basic xml formatting stuff but, if you're not from the coding world or just don't necessarily have an eye for details like this one, it's helpful to know when performing these types of edits.

Simplified example:
Take this code

Code: Select all

  <autoConfigureMaterial name="PLA">
    ...
  </autoConfigureMaterial>

and make it this code (For EACH material block)

Code: Select all

  <autoConfigureMaterial name="PLA">
    <defaultSpeed>4800</defaultSpeed>
    ...
    </autoConfigureMaterial>

This same process can be repeated for Quality options. Heck, you can even toss your quality auto-configure sets inside of your material auto-configures, creating "material specific quality options" and qualifying yourself as a certified king of the castle.

[deutchbag]

Thanks. What I'm seeing makes a lot more sense now. It would be a lot easier if I could edit these things in the software, or at the very least have a display option that shows what's attached to what behind the scenes.

[DM1]

I have added about 5 different new materials combinations not knowing that it will also effect my other materials. Not sure why S3D doesn't give an option to keep or not the material values as speed and more. My new concern is what will happen with the changes that you've suggested after S3D will issue an update that will probably fix this material default values?
Also, what program on a Mac can edit the FFF file?

[DM1]

When working on the FFF file , I didn't see the other materials that I've added before. Are they saved in the FFF file? can I also set for them the default parameters in the autoConfigureMaterial?

[CompoundCarl]

When working on the FFF file , I didn't see the other materials that I've added before. Are they saved in the FFF file? can I also set for them the default parameters in the autoConfigureMaterial?

Yes, any materials that show up in your process settings must be in the profile. Just do a Ctrl-F search to look for the text.

The default values are everything in the base profile, so you only need to add the changes you want to the autoConfigureMaterial sections

[DarthRevan]

My new concern is what will happen with the changes that you've suggested after S3D will issue an update that will probably fix this material default values?

I was concerned about that as well. I went ahead and downloaded an updated profile the last time I was prompted for it and found that If you've customized your profile and then download an updated profile the new one shows up in the profile drop down list as a new entry. Your changes are saved, and if you want to move to the new profile then add your changes, simply follow the same steps to add the extra settings to the new profile and then save a copy as your own.

Also, what program on a Mac can edit the FFF file?

FFF files, I've seen, are all plain text with the above mentioned indentation formatting being the only specific thing to make sure you get correct. So you can edit them in textEdit or if you prefer something that will help you visualize the groupings, you can use the advanced features offered by textWranger, or something similar.

[DM1]

Thanks everyone.
I really hope that someone from S3D will pick up on it and will do the changes so that when you create a new Auto-config for material, ALL the values in All Tabs will be taylord to a specific material combinations (as ABS (Left) HIPS (Right)) without affecting previous settings

[DarthRevan]

You're welcome. If you want everything saved specifically for that material and quality, you could forego the auto-configure options and just save a new copy of the profile...

[dloaec]

The process/profile management is simply catastrophic

It's frustrating to have an amazing software, that we can fine tune settings for each material/brand, but we are not able to save them in a proper way.

Please S3D guys, rethink and rewrite that part, we absolutly need it

Modifying xml files isn't a solution, it's a 'patch'...