Question about pausing and resuming printing

Hi, hopefully someone can get back to me before I have to leave I started a print for an android phone holder thing an it says it's going to take a few hours ... but I forgot we have to go to a bbq. Would I be able to pause the printing, disconnect and power off the printer, then turn things back on and resume when I get back?

I don't mind if there are some imperfections at te point where it restarts.

Thanks,
Marc

Never mind since it wasn't that far along I just cancelled it and will restart it when I get home.

Hope everyone has a great memorial weekend!

you can pause it but you wont be able to turn it off, you can turn the heaters and motors off though.

OK that's what I figured. Thanks!

If you're going to pause for any amount of time, it's a good idea to lift the print head. The hot end will ruin the print if it remains too close.

....and don't forget to lower it the same amount before hitting the resume button.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2013 02:42AM by waitaki.

I don't think leaving a print for several hours before resuming would work very well especially if you turn the bed off as the part will most likely detach when it cools enough.

I've restarted prints where I've had the electronics crash on me by finding a relevant z height in the gcode and restarting it from there.

Ben

>I don't think leaving a print for several hours before resuming would work very well especially if you turn the bed off as the part will most likely detach when it cools enough.

Unless you're printing ABS on Kapton tape.

I would agree in general with plexer on this. The longest I have paused a print is just a few minutes to change filament, but everything remained hot. If things cool off, your chances of successful resumption go down I would think.

Edit - Here is the link to the tutorial on how to split up G-code


Another option would be to take note of what layer your "paused" or stopped on. From there you can go back into the G-code and remove all previous steps before this layer. This would allow you to power down the system completely and resume at a later time.

I just finished doing a video tutorial on splitting up G-codes to print multiple colors. I will post link once uploaded.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2013 07:07AM by ikilledkenny.

I have been printing every day on 4 machines all day for the last 6 months making kits for sale on Ebay. I have learned a few things about pausing prints, and restarting failed prints.

First lesson, don't let the print come detached. In the early days of printing with ABS I had many many prints come off the bed, through trial and error and youtube I can now say confidently that it just doesn't happen any more. The winning combo is a heated bed set to 90 degrees Celsius, with a piece of thick glass on top, covered in a single layer of Kapton tape. THEN smear a layer of liquid ABS on the tape after each print. (to make the liquid just put a bunch of failed ABS parts in a container and pour in acetone, keep putting in more plastic until it can't dissolve any more). The results in a print so stuck down I have to use a razor scrapper every time I get a piece off the bed. put simply they DON'T come off without force. Ya know that sound you hear when your print bed has cooled, and your print pops off on it's own from plastic contracting? Yeah, I don't hear that anymore. ever.

Second lesson, measure the print and edit the gcode to start where you left off. You must be accurate to within .25 of a millimeter to get it perfect. Use a digital depth gauge on the end of your digital calipers.

third lesson, don't bump your glass, that will move the bottom section of your print, and your print will be shifted. Just don't touch it, and always clamp your glass down very well.

4th lesson, use a heat gun to re warm the print real hot so the layers stick.

5th lesson, when you restart make sure your print head is closer than normal to the restarted print, you want that "transition layer" to be super stuck on or else you might get a separation when your done. I manually adjust my Z rods as the print gets restarted, as long as you don't dig into your print, there is no such thing as too close.

When your done you will have a line in the print where the restart happened. Just file it away and everything is great.