Stewart Allen

If a ping value is < 100, does that mean the printer consumed less filament than the Palette expected or more?

I’ve run a few print jobs, and under “tools -> pings” it always says “no pings detected”. I see the printer pausing at the...

The lack of details or ability to investigate further is troubling. The 500 error seems to be one of a few catch-all...

The Palette 3 Pro doesn’t see .zip .mcfx or .mafx files on the USB stick — but I was able to use the same USB stick...

there is a bunch of this creeping in and no moderation so far

Use another slicer with the P2PP gcode post-processor. Or … I just added Palette3 support in the latest dev version of Kiri:Moto (3.1.D) … it outputs both gcode and MAFX files to use the P3 in accessory mode. I’m going to make a video shortly that covers setup and use.

this is sort of a show-stopper. without ping calibration, prints drift out of calibration by the end. this seems to be a Canvas issue as well when running Canvas output files in Accessory Mode. is anyone printing files in Accessory Mode? have you looked at the ping output during/after a job?

All the other issues above aside, the most technically difficult challenge with Palette and belt printing is finding a way to create the equivalent of purge blocks / towers. I think it’s possible, but there will be additional constraints around color changes early on since there is limited space for that until many layers have gone down. I am actively working on this issue and plan to have support for the CR-30 with Palette3 inside Kiri:Moto. Kiri:Moto was one of the first slicers with belt support and probably still has the most sophisticated features specific to belt printing (brims, anchors, belt flattening, base layer controls, looping, etc). Kiri:Moto is a browser-based, fully open source slicer. You can run it entirely offline (see github docs). The first goal is to produce MAFX files alongside Gcode. Then you load the Gcode into your sender (like OctoPrint) and the MAFX file onto the Palette3 (via USB stick). You can follow my work on the Grid.Space Discord server: https://discord.gg/J76cEBgjWh

I’m adding support for the Palette 3 in Kiri:Moto and may have something basic working as early as this weekend. Kiri:Moto is a browser-based, fully open source slicer. You can run it entirely offline (see github docs). The first goal is to produce MAFX files alongside Gcode. Then you load the Gcode into your sender (like OctoPrint) and the MAFX file onto the Palette3 (via USB stick). A way to send MAFX files directly over the network would be ideal, but requires open APIs on the Palette. In the meantime, you can follow my work on the Grid.Space Discord server: https://discord.gg/J76cEBgjWh

The hardware is very well designed and certainly capable. Since the internals appear to be a Pi compute module running a variant of Raspbian, opening it to the community for extensions and tinkering would be amazing. I suspect the primary concern may be security and exposing the cloud interface. Having been on the other side of this, it’s a lot easier to find reasons to say “no”. But I also think there’s good reason to believe community contributions could be a huge asset that would otherwise be impossible to realize internally.

If you use the P3 in accessory mode, then you will end up with two files in the zip from Canvas: a .gcode file and a .mafx file. The .gcode file goes to your spooler (OctoPrint) and the .mafx file goes on a USB stick to the P3. Then you start the print process on the P3. Once it gets the first bit of filament produced, it will tell you to heat your printer and start the print process there. Thne star the print in the OctoPrint interface. The printer then starts consuming filament. This pulls filament from the P3 which will produce more filament on demand as the internal buffer gets depleted. OctoPrint could be talking to Marlin or Klipper. Doesn’t matter that this stage. It would be great to be able to produce .mafx files with other slicers that already output, for example, native Klipper commands or code for belt printers. This is something I’m working on. Until an open API exists for sending files to the P3 (without Canvas), you will be stuck moving the .mafx file to the P3 on a USB stick.

the Palette touch screen is running chromium and just rendering a web page. it's possible this is some sort of a chromium or X idle timeout. did you know you can reach your Palette's on-screen menu through a standard browser? just point your browser at the IP of the Palette port 5000. like this http://10.10.10.10:5000 if your Palette was on IP address 10.10.10.10 -- when you interact with the interface through a browser and click some actions (like start print), it will cause the Palette's touch screen to update.

I’m adding a #palette channel on the Grid.Space Discord server under the Kiri:Moto discussion group since I am actively working on adding support for Palette 3. That work involves understanding the MAXF (and to a lesser extent MCXF) files and a bunch of other lower-level hardware details. Here is an invite if you’re interested in joining the discussion and/or helping to test the slicer integration as it progresses. https://discord.gg/J76cEBgjWh

I have been told this is not yet implemented for the Palette 3, but should be coming. Not sure about timing though.