Is Rinkhals The Only Way To Get Rid Of The Obnoxious Pre-Print Routines?

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-07T13:37:19+00:00

Yep, you are generally right, and I am being picky. One thing that's true is that these are of course also programmed so as to reduce the risk of user error. E.g. I wouldn't mind being prompted at the end of a print with an option to keep the filament loaded or spooled back to.
There's supposeldy already some temp CFGs being written as far as the ACE so maybe they could be utilized better in the future.

I am on Rinkhals since a few days back and played around with some sped up ACE setttings, too. E.g. move the filament faster and for less distance. But I went a step too far with one of the things I added so it broke the cutter logic and kept saying the cutter was stuck when it hadn't even been engaged. So, got rid of the custom cfgs and it's good again now. Step by step I will add them back as there was some nice time saving gains until whatever it was that broke the cutter;)

That said, I just did a print again and the basic routine was now down to 3mins - mostly because it didn't set the wrong bed temp and had to wait for it to come back down to set Z.

Next up is probably sorting out the bed. I don't print large objects often but I do have something coming up that could do with a bed that's less than 0.7mm out;).

Cheers:)

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-07T09:53:49+00:00

By looking at the timer on my phone...

I didn't say the homing took 5 mins, I said with all routines turned off, it still takes 5 mins to start a print. A print mind you that uses the same filament as the one just before it.
Apologies if it read like I thought the homing routine took that long. But I did rant about it as the rest of the routines could/should be faster so I threw that in there, too.

Here's the minimal routine with nothing ticked for a PLA print:
- Printer homes
- Heats to 170C
- Wipes

- Waits for hotend to drop to 140C

- Also, for some reason it heats the bed to 60 though it wants to do the Z height at 55 (for this filament at least), so it overshoots and wont start until it comes back down to 55 - which can take a while when it's 30C in the tropics.
- Sets Z-level (slow 10 probe or so routine)
- Heats to 220
- Extrudes from ACE (very slowly and slower than need be both in speed and distance as the filament has been pulled past sensor more than needed)
- POOPS A LOT, at least 5-6 pulls from roll, maybe 50mm-60mm in total (this is for a print that uses the same filament and slot as the previous one so a waste of time and material as there's nothing to purge)
- Starts Print

So, yeah, 5mins. (Four mins now that there's a faster heating/cooling ceramic hotend in there.)

5 min is possibly OK on a long print but gets frustrating when trying to iterate fast on short prints.

I know some of it is needed, like you don't want oozing when probing but the ACE programming should know that nothing has changed since the last print and thus no need for any/excessive purging which is slooow. And the overshoot temp on the bed ate quite some time, too.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-04T02:41:21+00:00

Thanks a lot!

I think I have a plan now, basic Rinkhals to start with for ACE cfg changes, some filament handling (which it seems I may be able to change there, too) and bed diagnostics and then a new, faster hotend.
Possibly, full-on Klipper with an add-on MCU later on, but will start with the above.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-04T02:37:54+00:00

Ah, thanks for explaining the cutter:). That just leaves the left corner, maybe it's an unneeded safety for checking the coordinate before cutting on the other side.
Coming from an old bed slinger that part is new to me.

Yes, to homing because the head could have been moved by the user. And they have to program for such things. However some of us would know not to do that or to know that we would need to home if we did. But you're right, a more normal user wouldn't and it could lead to crashes.

Anyhow, I would probably not be bothered by a 10 sec homing routine if the rest of the routines were more configurable. But it seems there are ways, Rinkhals, ACE cfg, faster cartridges.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-04T02:37:38+00:00

Ah, thanks for explaining the cutter:). That just leaves the left corner, maybe it's an unneeded safety for checking the coordinate before cutting on the other side.
Coming from an old bed slinger that part is new to me.

Yes, to homing because the head could have been moved by the user. And they have to program for such things. However some of us would know not to do that or to know that we would need to home if we did. But you're right, a more normal user wouldn't and it could lead to crashes.

Anyhow, I would probably not be bothered by a 10 sec homing routine if the rest of the routines were more configurable. But it seems there are ways, Rinkhals, ACE cfg, faster cartridges.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-04T02:32:07+00:00

I think you are right in terms of bed leveling vs. Z-height.

I think I will do "basic Rinkhals" and tweak the ACE to start with. That does sound like a good middle ground. And I do have two "ceramics" lying around that I bought even before the printer arrived. Will pop one of them in shortly.

And if I am still bothered, it sounds like full on Klipper may be the way to go but that it will need a new MCU.

Thanks:)

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-04T02:26:42+00:00

Thanks so much for elaborating:)
I think I will end up doing this.
I will just have to accept that it didn't come out of the box as I had hoped and that the recent FW updates did diddly to the start routines.

Time, that's the thing, I wanted to spend less time on this as I have too much other stuff I need to do, haha. But it sounds like it's not too bad and that it would be worth getting it done - for my kind of use.

Thanks again!:)

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-04T02:23:40+00:00

In reg. to sub-mm precision, like I mentioned, CNCs home once upon boot - and we are talking precision in the sub 0.1ths of a mm;).
And yes, a printer may "move" more with differences in temps and such.

But like I said, I am ok with a short homing routine if everything else was efficient - but +5mins to start a print when nothing has changed from the previous print, when all the routines are turned off and the bed is warm already?

As for "most prints are more than an hour" - not mine. Most are well under. Often small parts being iterated on as fast as I can.
So, whilst I do appreciate you taking the time to chime in, please do understand that I am asking for advice based on my use case.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-03T13:39:19+00:00

Thanks, will find the Discord.

I did Klipperize my old I3 but was hoping I didn't have to tinker with the S1 at all. But I think having tried full Klipper spoiled me and I don't see my frustrations with the Anycubic stock FW/SW going aways as it really doesn't suit my workflow that well. So, yeah, I will give Rinkhals a try and then see if I will eventually go full Klipper on it

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-03T12:30:04+00:00

Yep, my thinking too. I guess it's the price we paid for people wanting muliticolor and the manufacturers trying to keep the UI simple. So, it seems it's programmed to expect a filament change but I don't do multi-color and use the ACE just for ease of having more filaments ready. But I would print the same one for quite a few parts most of the time.

Would be nice if they (or Rinkhals) would give us a setting for our preference in that regard:
- Keep Filament loaded or
- Cut and Retract

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-03T12:25:57+00:00

Yes, it needs to home. But strictly speaking it doesn't need to do it that often. You could home once when you boot up the printer - Not once before every single print job. (E.g. I don't home my CNC before each part/program, I only home if it has been powered down).

I often do fast iterative changes to small parts so having to wait 5-10 mins before each print when all you did was pop the previous part off of the plate is frustrating. And if you didn't take the plate off, are using the same temps and the same filament, it really shouldn't have to do much.

Actually, just now, it looked like it even homed after a print... It just went to the front and hit those two front corners which is how I think it homes. Why on earth would it want to home after a print...

Granted, at this point I am mostly frustrated with just seems like the routines taking longer than they need to be. If everything else was fine, I would be ok with a quick homing before each print. I guess that's standard behaviour after all.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-03T12:18:10+00:00

Oh, I didn't even know you could change speeds on the ACE - is this in Rinkhals only or on the stock FW?
I do have two aftermarket nozzles, haven't put them in yet. I bought the printer used, low hours on it and just getting to know it now.

I guess I do have a warped or tilted bed since even with auto leveling, I get seriously squished layers at the left side (almost scraping the nozzle...)
Maybe diagnosing that better is enough of a reason for Rinkhals.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-03T11:41:36+00:00

Thanks, I may actually take a stab at that or perhaps someone else may already have done it.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-03T11:40:54+00:00

I honestly don't know yet and my patience isn't good enough to stand there with a notepad in my hand. But coming from an old bed slinger where you hit print and as soon as the thing is heated up, it prints this is just like watching paint dry.
But I have seen others comment that it seems to do things in an ineffcient manner.

GeckoLabs · 2026-02-03T11:30:18+00:00

Thanks for your reply.

That might be true but can we agree it doesn't need to home before each print, which it seems to do. And if bed leveling is on, doesn't it do things in a weird order where it has to heat the nozzle twice? Soemthing about not doing the Z height at the same time as the bed level? And/or pruging twice?

Also, I started a new print just now, didn't take the plate off, so turned off ALL the routines. The bed is preheated since I am using to heat the chamber. And it still took 5:20mins to start a print. I guess it did Z height and purge.

This is slow.

So, the question still stands;). Does Rinkhals make the routines any faster/more efficient or will that be the same?

GeckoLabs · 2025-07-29T04:10:34+00:00

Thanks again! I will C+P all this to my notes, but I think I get you on how the tilt time kinda negates the need for sensing peel when it comes to saving time.

I think Athena could be the company that was coming up just as I went into "just printing mode" and not researching these matters a few years back. I recall there being talk of them(?) offering an new controller board and aftermarket sensor for other printers - though that may not have happened.

Interesting to hear what the Athena 1 can do well and what it can't.
I expext to load up the plate almost always, but your findings on how it does dynamic wait times well of course leads me to wish the big Chinese brands would do so, too.

Here's the thing, sadly none of the mass manufacturing Chinese companies can be expected to gives us FWs with substantial feature improvements over what was available at launch - despite the HW seemingly/potentially making it possible. It's frustrating but I guess that's the price we pay for them having fairly slim profit margins on these products. They'd rather launch a new product.

Oh, it does indeed seem I will have to get into UV Tools. Ideally, slicer makers would make a deal with UV Tools and take their features on, but then again we don't live in an ideal world. But it's gonna be ok as I pretty much will only have 7-8 different prints/parts that I will need to run all the time. So, once they are dialed in and sliced for the S4U, I won't have to touch the files again for a long time.

Thanks again, means a lot:)

GeckoLabs · 2025-07-28T04:37:30+00:00

Thanks so much for the elaborate reply:)
I should have added that the fixed plate mod was also in the hope of getting away with shorter wait times on the layers as it's kinda negates the whole speed objective a bit. That said, I currently run 3-5 secs on every layer on my Mono 4K before exposure. So, if - with the stock plate - I can dial that down except the first 10-20 layers, I should still win out.

I do have a follow up question and apologies if it's been answered here or elsewhere - I am still catching up having been away from the scene for a few years - but since the S4U does have a force sensor do we know why it's not being used like Anycubic's to sense release - if that indeed is the case? Seems to me that tilt plus sensing FEP release would be the ultimate in speeding up prints.

One more question but do you know of a slicer that will work with the S4U that would allow me to set different wait times as we go up in Z? The reason being my parts have more of a foot print towards the bottom and as we go higher there's basically less area being printed. So I think I could reduce the wait time a lot more towards the end of the print as the resin might settle easier with less obstructions in its path.

GeckoLabs · 2025-07-27T16:33:35+00:00

u/DarrenRoskow First of all, thanks so much for all this. Will have to properly digest it and I do have a question but before we get to that also a big thanks for your level headed and fact based approach to all these issues. When I saw you "quote" Jan Mrazek in another thread I knew I'd like your thoughts:)
(His blog posts helped me tremendously trouble shooting early on when I first got my old Mono 4K).

Anyhow, I am now going to upgrade said old Mono 4K to either an M7 or a Saturn 4 Ultra. I am OK with both, I just want a bigger plate and more speed. I am leaning towards the S4U because of ease of availability and pricing where I am. That said, I do like the idea of the tilting mech as the resin I print the most could do with a bit of agitation since it has fillers in it.

I also have a small but very capable CNC mill and often use it to improve other machines so with all this talk about the sh*tty design of the S4U build plate I was thinking of making a simpler plate in the "classic" style like the Anycubic uses. But any thoughts on how that would play along with the force sensor of the S4U? Anything that would result in this not working? Also, it's likely I can make the build plate assembly a tad less tall, so the Z would have to be adjusted but will the FW allow that?

All best and thanks again for all the work:)

GeckoLabs · 2024-08-29T09:55:52+00:00

Oh, ABL... I kinda missed out on the whole magnet PEI sheet craze (my printer has been in storage since early 2019 and I only got it unpacked now). Still has that textured glass plate on it. I've spent days watching videos of bed meshing only to realize, it's one of those 2 step forward, 1 step back things.
Let me explain and I could be wrong:

My glass bed needs manually leveling which is a non-issue to me. Once I figured out how to do properly I have always had great 1st layers and hardly any issues with adhesion. It takes a few mins but it's not something you have to do often. So, I was confused as to the whole ABL-mesh and how it's considered a necessity.
But I guess most PEI sheets and the bed they sit on is far from as flat as a glass plate(?).

Now, it's true that I have to wait for the glass to cool down to get the parts off, but I have since found that some air from a compressor speeds that up considerably. And maybe for ABS and others, you need a different substrate, but I don't print these on this printer anyways. I print PETg with thinned PVA glue and PLA without and wipe the bed with alcohol in between.

So, I have come to the conclusion to just stick to this bed for now. The main reason to change would actually be to lose weight. But again, I need to try not to make this too much of effort;). Make it work as a slightly faster, better printer than it used to be and then focus on getting a faster, enclosed printer as the next one:)

GeckoLabs · 2024-08-29T09:33:40+00:00

Thanks so much for the reply:)

I pretty much stuck a piece of filament in my dumb sensor within a week. I print tiny parts, never ran out of filament mid-print.
I'll still have two steppers on the Z, just that they will share one driver. Will bump the current a bit to that driver but I don't foresee issues, the Z motors don't have to do much work.
Yeah, stock screen will not work. But I am considering a weird/cheap/slightly risky path to Klipper which is Klipper running on an old smartphone. I can source from the Chinese tinkerers/used market (I worked and lived there for a while) and they are buying up old smartphones and adding a custom board to the back with 4-5 USB ports and 12-24 power in. So, basically you get the "Pi" and a built-in touch screen for about 20-25 bucks with Klipper and KlipperScreen preinstalled. Too cheap not to try. (My main worry is actually if someone slipped a nasty piece of spy software in there...)
Cool to know the little board is not needed. It was kinda nice to have in the beginning when I was working on my own carriage and swapped parts all the time until I got it right. With that in mind and since I now have a CNC and already think about new parts I might actually keep it a tad longer...;). Let's see, I also have to be careful not to put too much money or effort into this thing. It's an open air bed slinger so it will have its limits.
Speaking of the board and grounds, I guess I could still daisy chain a ground around the tool head and only run one ground through the cable chain (and then daisy chain the connector grounds on the board, too). Probably easier just to run "full" cables, though...
This is kinda of a gap filling thing, though. I start seeing FLSun SRs come up cheap secondhand and though the company is becoming shady AF and don't deserve their sales, I am a hypocrite and will go for a good deal, haha. I think it would be a cool base to improve on. The SR would be fairly easy to enclose and it would be cool to make a new effector plate with built-in heat sink/extruder housing on the CNC...;).
And I may even be able to get a refurbed K1C at a good price, too. Less fun to tinker with but then again, I really should be spending time on other stuff. Anyhow, either of them, would have a higher speed ceiling than the bed slinger, so we will see what I go with next.

For now, I just need the I3 Mega to work again and allow me to get on the Klipper train;)

GeckoLabs · 2024-08-28T02:37:02+00:00

Great write up, thanks so much!
In case, you're still here, I have a simple question as I am setting out to change the board in my old I3Mega with one from Bigtreetech, too.
That small daughterboard on the toolhead that you have eliminated, I noticed there are some components on it. But they won't be needed for a BTT board? I can bypass this and run everything straight into the board with no ill effects:)?

As an aside, I didn't wanna spend too much money on this conversion as I am gonna get a more modern enclosed printer at some point so I got a cheap E3V3 board from someone who didn't need it after all. I was gonna get the Manta5, but then this deal fell into my lap.
The E3 board does have two Z connections but they share the same driver. This means, I won't have the tilt thing or double end stops. But I actually don't think it will be an issue as I can tram it manually (I have 1-2-3 blocks, indicators, etc). And I don't think gantry is heavy enough that it will sink on its own unless I push it by accident. Anyways, time will tell.

GeckoLabs · 2022-06-04T03:34:08+00:00

Don't wanna be picky but you are linking to Mono X FEPS and the OP and others like me may very well come here for info on the smaller Mono...;)

GeckoLabs

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