How many tools can I define?

As title really. I'm using a Diamond hot end on a modified RepRapPro Mendel 3 Tricolour and playing around with mixing ratios. The tools are set to use all 3 extruders and sharing the same heater. eg Pn D0:1:2 H1 (where n denotes tool number). Then using M567 to set different mixing ratios eg P0 E1:0:0, P1 E0:1:0, P2 E0:0:1, P3 E0.5:0.5:0, P4 E0:0.5:0.5, P5 E0.5:0:0.5, P6 E0.34:0.33:0.33.

Obviously the number of permutations is almost limitless. Realistically, having 20% increment for each filament might possibly be practical but that still gives 6x6x6 = 216 possible variations.

So, what is the maximum I could have? I'm thinking that there might be other factors than what the firmware can support. For example, if I could bring myself to define 216 tools in my config.g, it would make it a hell of a long file. Also, would it scamble the web interface? It currently shows heater one and then in brackets (T0,T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6). What would that look like with 216 tools?

I'd be really surprised if you could define 216 tools at once and I don't see any practical advantage of doing this either. If I had a Diamond hotend, I'd define 4 tools max (one mixing tool and 3 other ones for each extruder), but not more.

Instead you could create a macro directory and (in theory) create 216 files to set the mixing ratios for your mixing tool on demand, I believe that would make much more sense.

Edit: The size of one Tool instance is ~60 bytes in my fork. If you can use ~4KB of free RAM, you could in theory define about 65 tools at once. Again, I don't think this would make much sense though.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2016 08:53AM by chrishamm.

Quote
chrishamm
I'd be really surprised if you could define 216 tools at once and I don't see any practical advantage of doing this either. If I had a Diamond hotend, I'd define 4 tools max (one mixing tool and 3 other ones for each extruder), but not more.

Instead you could create a macro directory and (in theory) create 216 files to set the mixing ratios for your mixing tool on demand, I believe that would make much more sense.

I agree that 216 tools would be extreme and probably unnecessary but you haven't really answered my question. I currently have 7 tools defined. Let's call them filaments A,B and C. So I have A, B, C, A+B, A+C, A+D, and A+B+C. I can think of some reasons why more would be useful, for example if one of the filaments was clear, then it might be uselful to mix this with a low percentage of something else to make translucent colours. So the question remains.

For info, although Slic3r can only cope with 4 tools (extruders as they are referred to in Slic3r), I've already printed an object using the 7 coloured bands used above. It's a bit of a ball ache but not too difficult. Basically, slice as normal then edit the resultant gcode file with notepad++. Do a "find next" for "Z" and repeat as necessary until one finds the height at which to change colour then inset a Tn command (where n is the tool number). It is a bit of a ball ache but even for 4 colours it's not too bad when compared to creating several stls in OpenScad, adding the first object in Slic3r, then going into settings, load part, change extruder, and repeat that process all the other parts.

Can you elaborate on how I would set up and use a macro directory please.


Many thanks

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2016 09:12AM by deckingman.