What are "Pinging" and "Ponging"?
Palette must ensure the right filament shows up at the extruder/nozzle at
the right time—but printing is not a perfect science. A number of factors can
cause small differences between estimated filament usage (stated in GCode)
and actual filament usage, such as:
Skipping
Filament diameter inconsistency
Imperfect first-layer adhesion
Moisture
Filament brand/color physical property differences
When printing with only one filament, if a GCode file states that it will use
10 m of filament, but the printer actually uses 9.5 m, it is typically
unnoticeable: the filament showing up in the print will be the same color/
material regardless of where it is from in the spool. However, when
creating precise multi-color and multi-material prints with Palette, an
offset of 0.5 m would result in a failed print; the colors would all be
incorrect.
Because of the importance of precise filament positioning for Palette
prints, we created 2 systems to keep the right filament showing up at the
right time. These systems are called
Pinging
and
Ponging
. They're
Palette's
closed-loop feedback systems
that allow Palette to adjust
filament lengths during prints to keep everything in calibration. Pinging
and Ponging use Palette's
Scroll Wheel/Encoder
.
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