Hey all, I don’t have the AMS and don’t plan to get it soon, while I would love it, I do change filament a lot, but I have to press unload which heats up to 250, then it cools down, then I have to press load which re-heats up to 250, can it be told to stay at 250 until I have loaded new filament in? Seems it would save some time.
As soon as the unload completes, type “250” in to the extruder temp box where it says “0” and it’ll hold that temp while you swap rolls and you won’t have any reheat time when you hit “load”.
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I think it would be quicker just to wait? - Was thinking there could be something in the code which could be altered.
Unload is not necessarily followed by a Load. If there was a Replace button, then yes.
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I agree, when can we have a replace button 
If you unloaded and the extruder stayed at 250, how would you shutdown the printer when you’re done? Just hitting the power switch would not be a good idea with a hot extruder.
For the way I use the printer, I would never unload to then turn off the machine, there is always filament in it! Keep it working.
Well… you could just type “0” in to the extruder temp box when you’re done, which is exactly what the G code does when it’s done. But I disagree that it’s not a good idea to hit the power switch with a hot extruder. It’s neither good or bad. The hot extruder doesn’t care why power is being removed. The G code shutting it off or external power going way, it’s the same from the extruder’s point of view. The only “proviso” being that it is assumed BBL designed their power supplies and power control circuits correctly. But I think that’s a safe assumption.
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I think the temp changes are a necessary evil in that by lowering the hotend temp between Unload/Load you are avoiding some oozing from the nozzle. 0.02…
I thought the same thing until I got distracted once after I unloaded the old filament. I hit load and had to walk away for something while it was heating back up and forgot about it for a couple minutes. After I came back I noticed it was still at 250c so sent the filament down the tube and to my surprise it grabbed it and then asked “Done or Retry”. I want to say another time, I forgot about it for much longer and the temp went down to 90c and once it detected filament it heat back up to 250c and grabbed it. I’m on a P1P and now that is my normal process.
- Hit “Unload”
- Pull back filament
- Immediately hit “Load”
- Get new filament loaded in my own time. It does all the moves and heating while I’m putting the other filament away and getting a new roll.
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I’ve always worked with the assumption that you need to let the fans cool down the extruder before removing power. Perhaps this is no longer necessary.
But why? The plastic in the extruder isn’t going to get any hotter than it already is. The extruder itself isn’t going to get any hotter than it already is. Whether you remove the power under software control or by throwing the switch, the power is removed and the extruder starts to cool off. All the fans do is accelerate the cool down. But how long the stuff takes to cool off doesn’t matter to the stuff that’s cooling off. I don’t think it was ever necessary. I’ve never done it that way and I’ve been FDM printing since Makerbot in 2010.
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It’s been so long I don’t know where I picked that up, was about that same time frame.
This is a bad idea. keeping PLA at 250 for any amount of time will burn it into a clog. Standby temp of 180 would be fine.