Priming Hot End

How do you prime your hot end? I have been using a skirt to get the hot end primed so when I start printing the actual part, there is plastic ready to come out. When I started, I used Slic3r and it has a feature where you can set the number of loops for the skirt or a minimum amount of filament to extrude. Using S3D, it only gives the option of the number of loops. I don't want to have to change the number of loops based on the part being printed because I know I will forget. And if I don't extrude enough during the skirt, nothing comes out of the hot end for a while when the part starts printing.

So, I was wondering what alternative methods people use to get the hot end ready to print?

I'm homing manually, so I get machine ready by moving my z up 10mm, heat the nozzle manually, extrude as much as i feel like to make sure its flowing with no weirdness going on, then with my finger on the print button I drop the head and hit go...obviously this can squash some filament in the nozzle but I try to be quick, then skirt starts I check things as it goes...and hopefully all is ok, bit of a pain, but when your left to figure out your own way what else can you do...probably a lot with the g-code, i'll get there eventually but it's not the main priority at the mo'

Set your starting g code with an extrusion command, you can set the distance, location on the plate, extrusion rate and speed. Just look for examples in Google.

The starting g-code script (using S3D) for my Makergear printer moves the nozzle off the edge of the table, extrudes maybe 50mm of filament, and then wipes its nose on the edge of the table before doing a 1 loop skirt. This works nicely if you can move the nozzle off the table. I'd love it, though, if S3D added the same minimum skirt extrusion length as in Slic3r.

Elmo,
I give an example of gcode for this here.

I'd recommend manually moving your hot end to the starting location you want to prime at and noting the coordinates, and then move it to where you want it to end, and note that.
Then you could create some gcode that just moves there and test it. Once that is OK then add the extrusion amounts that are correct for your printer, and test that. If all is good, put that in the starting gcode as mentioned, and you will not need to worry about priming or skirts again.

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My printer: Raptosaur - Large Format Delta - [www.paulwanamaker.wordpress.com]
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