There’s an option to choose air assist, which I assume sends info to set a pin high (or low) at the beginning and end of each job to control the air pump. But, what is it turning on? Is it fan1,2, … or what? Also, I’ve looked at the G-code with air assist turned on and off and there’s no difference. So, just how does this work? How can I take advantage of this feature? I can’t find anything about this anywhere.
It’s quite likely that this function doesn’t do anything at all on Marlin, as there wasn’t a clear thing to connect it to - Marlin already uses the fan output for the laser. If there’s an output you think makes the most sense for this option, let me know - it’s easy to add it.
The MK4 variant has a variable “LASER_PERIPHERALS” in Laser.h for controlling a relay board. It can be mapped to any pin along with a “LASER_PERIPHERALS_STATUS_PIN”. There’s also a “LASER_PERIPHERALS_TIMEOUT” variable set to 30000ms. Hope this helps!
That doesn’t tell me which command would be issued to turn it on and off. In GRBL, for example, it’s M8 / M9 to turn on / off the air.
I found this in the MK4Duo firmware:
- M43 T - Toggle pin(s) and report which pin is being toggled
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S[pin] - Start Pin number. If not given, will default to 0
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L[pin] - End Pin number. If not given, will default to last pin defined for this board
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I - Flag to ignore MK4duo's pin protection. Use with caution!!!!
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R - Repeat pulses on each pin this number of times before continueing to next pin
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W - Wait time (in miliseconds) between pulses. If not given will default to 500
It seems to be a more functional version of M43 that lets you turn a pin on/off. Not sure how to use it.