Heating bad and extruder at the same time

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1

Hi, 

I'm a new comer to the Zortrax machines, just got a M200 for the office. 

Very happy with prints quality so far, but I don't understand why the printer wouldn't heat up both the bed and the extruder at the same time. Could save 5min on each print, and since we're working on iterations of small parts, that's annoying. 

Doesn't seem to be any option on the software.

Maybe there's a way to modify the Gcode by hand to change that.

Any thoughts?

Best, 

Pierre

2

Actually they do heat at the same time, it's just not shown on the LCD. The firmware is apparently unable, however, to closely control the temperature of the extruder while it's monitoring the bed temperature, and if you have means of observing the hot end temperature you will often see it far overshooting the target temperature while the bed heating cycle is still in progress.

3

Used to be able to heat both in good time on older firmware, the reason they stopped doing it this way was because there were concerns that the filament would perish(clog the hotend) due to long time being idle at high temp. 

I think this is how i remember it, my quote may need revision ^

I hate the longer waiting times too btw. 

4

The process could be a bit quicker but it would shorten the lifespan od the hotend.

The extruder heats up faster than the bed and that could cause the material inside to perish and, in consequence, to clog the hotend.

5

I have an M200 V4 printer with the latest firmware. The bed and extruder DO NOT heat up at the same time from a cold start. The extruder is at room temp when the bed hits 100%. Then the extruder heats. This happens every time and has for several versions of firmware. Way back (0.5?) they heated at the same time. I don't mind if it heats a little slower or only to 50% or whatever, but there is a very long delay from turning on the printer to when everything is hot - much longer than there used to be. 

Try this test: with the printer off for many hours (not idle, not sleeping, OFF) turn the power switch on. Then immediately select a print file and say print. The bed will heat, this will take 5-7 minutes. During this time the extruder remains at room temperature, not heat at all. You can confirm this by placing your hand on the heat block. Once the bed reaches 100% on the display, the extruder will begin to heat. This takes another 5-7 minutes. To start a print from printer off can take 10 - 15 minutes.