Unloading material automatically?

Hi

I've been experiencing lots of reliability problems with Z-PLA Pro on an M200. In search for a solution, I've found these Tips for Printing with Z-PLA Pro.

One of the recommendations is this:

"Unload Z-PLA Pro from the hotend immediately after the printing process. Do not keep the overheated material loaded in the extruder so as to avoid material degradation in the nozzle."

I can understand why Zortrax recommends this, but frankly it is quite unpractical. I am using the M200 in a professional context, meaning that the machine is often running over night while nobody is in the office. So if a print finishes some time at night or early in the morning, nobody is there to unload the material while the hot-end is still hot.

What I would really need is some kind of "auto-unload" option. Maybe there could be a checkbox in the Z-Suite where I could specify that the filament should automatically be unloaded once the print-job is finished. This would be extremely helpful!

(Another idea in this context is that maybe the fan should run at full speed for a while after finishing a print in order to minimize the degradation of any material that is still left in the hot-end.)

2 Likes

Good idea...

Hi

I've been experiencing lots of reliability problems with Z-PLA Pro on an M200. In search for a solution, I've found these Tips for Printing with Z-PLA Pro.

One of the recommendations is this:

"Unload Z-PLA Pro from the hotend immediately after the printing process. Do not keep the overheated material loaded in the extruder so as to avoid material degradation in the nozzle."

I can understand why Zortrax recommends this, but frankly it is quite unpractical. I am using the M200 in a professional context, meaning that the machine is often running over night while nobody is in the office. So if a print finishes some time at night or early in the morning, nobody is there to unload the material while the hot-end is still hot.

What I would really need is some kind of "auto-unload" option. Maybe there could be a checkbox in the Z-Suite where I could specify that the filament should automatically be unloaded once the print-job is finished. This would be extremely helpful!

(Another idea in this context is that maybe the fan should run at full speed for a while after finishing a print in order to minimize the degradation of any material that is still left in the hot-end.)

Great idea! Thanks.

1 Like

I just came here to submit the same request for the same reason.

It can be a check box option if some reason someone wants to trun it off.

And also when spool is finished and print waits for a new one.