dguisinger
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 11:26 pm

Material Catalogs

I would like a better system for managing materials.

For example:
PLA
Hatchbox Blue PLA
Hatchbox Red PLA
Nylon
T-Glaze
T-Glaze Clear

etc.
The reason being I want to manage a lot of customized settings based on how I've seen a material work in the printer. I've had PLA of one color need a higher temperature for a good extrusion than PLA of a different color. I'd rather not have to re-enter and maintain all of the settings, I'd like to see it inherit from the parent and show (by color maybe) the settings that are inherited vs the colors that are overridden.

It would also be nice to be able to manage printed filament counts. For example, you tell the system when you load a new spool (or give each spool an inventory number so you can have multiple spools of the same material at different levels of use), and then automatically decrement the used amount for a print (or for an export, since I print using OctoPrint), and warn if you may run out of filament during a print.
CompoundCarl
Posts: 2005
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:23 am

Re: Material Catalogs

I do something really similar. I have different settings for a few different brands of PLA, some different types of ABS, PVA, ninjaflex, etc. S3D already has a way to save these different materials and then load custom settings for each one, so it's really useful (and it integrates with their material dropdown options for each selection!)

What I did, is go to File > Export FFF Profile, and then save the base profile to my hard drive. Then open the .fff file in a text editor like notepad and scroll to the bottom. You should see a few sections that labeled with <autoConfigureMaterial>. By default, I think they had a <autoConfigureMaterial> section for PLA, ABS, and PVA. The settings within that section represent what will be changed for each material. For example, if your PLA section looked like the code below, it would automatically change the printing speed to 3600 mm/min each time you select that material. Other material could use different speeds. They actually let you put any setting you want within these sections, so it's very versatile!

Code: Select all

  <autoConfigureMaterial name="PLA">
    <defaultSpeed>3600</defaultSpeed>
  </autoConfigureMaterial>
You can just add new <autoConfigureMaterial> sections for each new material you want to include. Then save the file and go to File > Import FFF Profile to re-load it into the software.

Hope that helps! :D
Neptune
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2016 10:27 am

Re: Material Catalogs

The Material catalog needs to add some settings that are incorporated into the specific material type. Currently the settings that are affected are Temperature and Cooling.
The Following need to be added:
Filament Diameter
Extrusion Multiplier(kind of redundant but is the right place for this to be)


Filament Diameter varies within manufacturers for the same type of filament and being able to have "Hatchbox -Blue" set at 1.73 and "Hatchbox-Red" set at 1.71 would be fantastic. Also the Extrusion Multiplier addition for flexible filaments is very useful.
dguisinger
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 11:26 pm

Re: Material Catalogs

Well, I guess its nice to know you can do some of it by editing a config file.....
but

The point of "Simplify" is to Simplify right? :P
CompoundCarl
Posts: 2005
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:23 am

Re: Material Catalogs

Neptune - all of my S3D profiles already change the extrusion multiplier when you change the material type, so I don't think any changes are needed for that one. If you want to change the filament diameter too, just add the following into each <autoConfigureMaterial> section

Code: Select all

  <autoConfigureMaterial name="PLA">
    <filamentDiameter>1.75</filamentDiameter>
  </autoConfigureMaterial>
Then you can change the values to whatever you want for each material.
theDiver
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2015 5:06 am

Re: Material Catalogs

This feature is a MUST have.

When getting ready to print, we should just be able to select the filament we are using, and the settings for this filament is use.
Extruder and heatbed temperature.
Diameter.
Speeds, layer thickness.

And every other detail that might need adjustment when changing filament.
CompoundCarl
Posts: 2005
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:23 am

Re: Material Catalogs

Personally, I like to adjust speed as a function of quality, not material. Obviously, some users are going to prefer different things.

Anyways, all of what you are saying is already possible. Read the posts above yours.
theDiver
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2015 5:06 am

Re: Material Catalogs

CompoundCarl wrote:Personally, I like to adjust speed as a function of quality, not material. Obviously, some users are going to prefer different things.

Anyways, all of what you are saying is already possible. Read the posts above yours.
It might be possible, by editing a config file, but that's not easy, and it should be possible from within the program.

It should also allow inheritance, so i can make a default setting for alle types of filament, then make a sub type of a speciel brand, then under that the 5 different colors i have and so on.

That would make a good program even better.
MGoerke
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2016 12:41 pm

Re: Material Catalogs

Wow I am glad that I am not the only one that manage their filament like this! ABS.2 , abs .1, pla ,2, pla .1, wood .5, tup ,3 etc then if I get a 2nd printer it even more confused it! I dint understand why free software such as repetier using slic3r or cura make the drop down menues so easy but $150 I gotta hunt for settings and the. Out of the blue loose them like I have! Don't get me going if ya want to use 2 printers. Lol.
p1um1oco
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 3:06 pm

Re: Material Catalogs

This is the one thing that has been a problem for me when moving from slic3r to S3D. In slic3r I had each one of my filaments setup each have slightly different dia, etc and some different settings.

It sounds like from this tread I can do this in the config file, and I will try that but to make that editable with the GUI would be nice.

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