wreality
commented
10 years ago So, this was totally in the original version of the laser app (and still exists under the hood in laserbeta). It was hidden mainly because it was a nuisance. Since the GCode doesn't know if the Z has been homed or not, the only answer would be to add a homing command whenever a thickness is specified. And the end result is a Z-home before each job (which it irritatingly time consuming.
We might be able to add something to the firmware to require a home if a Z-move is directed, but I'm not sure that would be the best answer.
Plus, if the Arduino gets power cycled (via plugging in the USB cable, or a disconnect/reconnect to stop a job) it'll lose the knowledge that its already been homed (and I think this occurs more often than is actually obvious).
Long and short, I'm a fan of the idea, just not sure the best way to implement it.
zimmer62
Adding a setting for material thickness would be really nice, this way it could adjust the bed height as part of the job, or part of the operation, not sure which is better.
To prevent the risk of a crash, we could ask on the LCD before bed height movement if it's the first operation in a job. Or just a warning when creating the gcode that this will move the zaxis to a particular height.
Maybe even naming the file with the material thickness so there is no confusion later.