Retraction tower with klipper¶
One thing that was amazing about Ultimaker Cura was the Calibration Shapes plugin, allowing easy calibration for all major filament parameters.
None of the SuperSlicer forks seem to handle this variety of calibration shapes, and retraction has always been the most problematic one for me.
With Klipper and Firmware Retractions, this turned out to be a lot easier after all:
Prep Work¶
Enable Firmware Retraction in your slicer and your klipper configuration and add SET_RETRACTION to your start code, e.g. for OrcaSlicer:
SET_RETRACTION RETRACT_LENGTH={retraction_length[0]} RETRACT_SPEED={retraction_speed[0]} UNRETRACT_SPEED={retraction_speed[0]} UNRETRACT_EXTRA_LENGTH={retract_restart_extra[0]}
Info
If you do multi-material printing, there needs to be additional G-Code to set the new filament's retraction settings on Filament Change.
Setup a macro that switches both retraction speeds together:
[gcode_macro _SET_RETRACTION_SPEED_TOGETHER]
gcode:
SET_RETRACTION RETRACT_SPEED={ params.RETRACT_SPEED | float } UNRETRACT_SPEED={ params.RETRACT_SPEED | float }
GET_RETRACTION
[gcode_macro _SET_RETRACTION_LENGTH]
gcode:
SET_RETRACTION RETRACT_LENGTH={ params.RETRACT_LENGTH | float }
GET_RETRACTION
[gcode_macro RETRACTION_SPEED_TOWER]
gcode:
TUNING_TOWER COMMAND=_SET_RETRACTION_SPEED_TOGETHER PARAMETER=RETRACT_SPEED SKIP=0.8 STEP_HEIGHT=7.6 STEP_DELTA={ params.STEP_DELTA | default(10) | float } START={ params.START | default(10) | float }
[gcode_macro RETRACTION_LENGTH_TOWER]
gcode:
TUNING_TOWER COMMAND=_SET_RETRACTION_LENGTH PARAMETER=RETRACT_LENGTH SKIP=0.8 STEP_HEIGHT=7.6 STEP_DELTA={ params.STEP_DELTA | float } START={ params.START | float }
Slice the RetractTower.stl with arbitrary retraction settings (anything else but disabled) and upload it to the machine.
Running the test¶
Start the print, followed by running:
This will start the test at 20mm retraction, and increase it by 20mm every 7.6mm starting from 0.8mm height.
Calibrate the speed accordingly, slice the model again, and now run distance: