So when a color is being changed the clippy cuts the old filament, the old filament is retracted and the new filament is fed into place. Then the print head is moved to a "waste" area and the old filament in the hot end is printed to the waste area along with the start of the new filament. The print head then moves back to the object being printed and printing continues in the new color.
Well let's say I am printing a 3 inch high object and the color is the same until 2.5 inches. Does the print head have to be moved to the waste area then down to the bed? Otherwise the printer will just be printing in mid air and there will be a bunch of spaghetti.
So need to be careful about the placement of the waste area so that the head clears the object being printed.
Am I correct here or am I missing something?
Thank You
The slicer is aware of this and will take one of two actions, depending on how it is set up. By default, it will simply fill the empty space on the purge tower with a very light infill layer... but there is a setting that allows the Z axis to move up and down to skip those layers to save filament.
Bill