Feature Request - Pause at Specified Layer

[Dssguy1]

I am requesting that you add a box on the "Layer" tab (or in the other tab if that works better) that will let us select what layers we want our print to pause at. A command already exists that will communicate to Makerbot (maybe others) machines with Sailfish firmware installed.

It is detailed here (just search for "Pause @ ZPos mcode"):
http://jettyfirmware.yolasite.com/v74-v44.php

As discussed in this thread (sorry you have to request access but it only takes a day):
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... Ns0tK74Fnc

The firmware only has the ability to pause at a specific layer height and that can be a confusing thing to figure out if you need to pause at EXACTLY a specific layer and not one layer above or below (especially with compressed first layers or different layer heights in a print). Being that your gcode visualizer is only showing layers, it would be helpful if we could input the layer/layers we want pauses.

I see it being similar to the layer based temperatures or cooling options. We input the layer or layers we want the machine to pause at and once that layer is reached (not completed), the machine would pause and await further input. This is great for adding things to the inside of your print or switching colors at a specific layer to create a certain effect.

Here is a quick example of a time I needed to know an exact layer height to create an artistic effect on a print. There are countless others that I'm sure we have all encountered.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxXnFo ... sp=sharing


If this isn't possible in the short term, could you implement a small change to your gcode viewer and show us the layer AND the Z Height? That way we can use the visualizer to find the exact height and input that into the currently existing "Pause @Zpos" option in Sailfish, without needed to do the math.

[ScottD]

Great idea, and S3D already has a lot of the layer information in the gcode so it shouldn't be to hard to add this feature.

[JoeJ]

I always just use the cross section tool to figure out what height I need to pause a print at. Just go to View > Cross Section, click enable cross section, and then adjust the Z value until you are cutting through the model where you want to pause the print.

[Dssguy1]

Are you using this method in the model view or the sliced view? If you are looking in the model view, I don't think that takes into account the compressed initial layer height.

I will check and see if that comment is correct.

[SteedMaker]

Indeed, we need an intuitive way for Simplify3D to do a cold pause (cool the extruder) and left the extruder out of the way then wait for the a person to change the filament color and then resume the printing process with the new color. The other day I had to keep checking the print constantly to catch it at the right point to change filament colour. Apparently one can code this into the code but isn't that why we purchased simplify3D - to simplify the process? This should be a priority item.

[JoeJ]

This is a really old thread, but since you drug it up, there are a few different ways to do this now.

If you are printing over USB, you can easily pause at a specific layer numbers. For example, to pause at layer 57, just put this single line into your post-processing script.
{REPLACE "; layer 57\n" "M0\n; layer 57\n"}

When the print gets to that layer, the print will automatically pause just as if you had clicked the Pause button in the machine control panel. You can then change your filament, and click Resume to begin printing again.