Can Palette switch to a new spool if my current spool runs out?

Palette cannot automatically detect when a spool of filament is ending. However, you can now complete this process in Chroma. Simply go to Tools > Generate Custom MSF > End-of-Spool to enter the lengths of filament for each spool.

We also have another manual way: If the user is able to estimate the length of each spool and manually create a .MSF file, Palette can splice filament end-to-end and therefore automatically switch spools mid print. Although this is a more advanced process, if this information is built into someone's workflow (e.g. s/he starts with 4 full spools and track usage on each print), then it would be possible to splice together filament for longer and bigger projects.

Below is an example of how to complete this. First, download the Spool Splicing Demo file here. Open this file in order to make some adjustments:

1) “cu” refers to the drives being used in this file. “1111” shows all 4 drives being used, whereas “1000” means drive 1, “1100” means drives 1 and 2, and “1110” means drives 1, 2, and 3.

2) “ns” is the number of splices. In this case, we will be completing 4 splices.

The next portion (highlighted in yellow and blue) is where you will need to do your modifications depending on your filament length

3) This field refers to the distance at which splices are completed. You’ll notice that these values are written in Hexadecimal terms. We can easily translate these values here.  In this file, we are creating splices every 2000 mm. The highlighted yellow portion which shows “44fa0000” is equivalent to 2000 mm, and the highlighted blue portion (457a0000) is equal to 4000 mm. Please note that these numbers correspond to the TOTAL length of filament at which the splices will need to be done, not the length of the specific filament being spliced. We can see that the next splice is done at 6000 mm, and the last at 8000 mm. Please also note that when you do take the hexadecimal value, you do not need to include the “0x” at the front of the value.

4) This field refers to the drive being used. “00” is drive 1, “01” is drive 2, “02” is drive 3, and “03” is drive four. The highlighted portion shows that this splice is for drive 1.

Let’s try an example!  Let’s say you have the following spools:  3 meters of red into Drive 1, 1 meter of yellow into Drive 2, 5 meters of blue into Drive 3, and 3 meters of orange filament into Drive 4. Your .MSF file should look like this:

Using another example, let’s say we want to splice together 2 spools of filament: 6 meters of pink filament into drive 1, and 8.5 meters of clear filament into drive 2. Your MSF should look like this:

Remember, the values should be the cumulative value, not the length of the splice! Once you're ready, you can run this file on your Palette by going to Splice Demo > Without Printer on your Palette's menu. This will create filament until the file is finished. Alternatively, you can run Palette in Splice Demo > With Printer mode to create the filament in real time as your printer is using it. Splice Demo > With Printer mode removes the need to spool filament, but would require you to update your .MSF file as you consume filament from the spools.

If you are looking for Multi-Spool Mode for Palette 2, please see here.