Corrupted Lift and Retract Settings Anycubic Mono X

[KurtMF]

A couple of months ago I upgraded to UVTOOLS 4.4.3, then later to 5.0, now at 5.0.2. Since 4.4.3 I've noticed that UVTOOLS seems to be trying to decode and implement 2 stage lift for a pwmx printer file which does not support this (Anycubic Mono X). The result is corrupted timing being used whenver I save an updated pwmx file in UVTOOLS.

I'm using the latest firmware (3.5.4) and slicer software (Photon Workshop) from Anycubic support website. Slicer setup for Mono X does not accept 2 stage timing for lift/retract. When I print a pwmx file saved in my slicer, it shows a 5h 52m print time on the printer screen. When I print the same file after being saved in UVTOOLS, it shows 8h 4m print time. UVTOOLS shows 2 + 2.1 for lift distance on normal layers (set to 7 in slicer), but shows correct lift distance for base layers, and shows incorrect values for lift and retract time for all layers.

I'm pretty sure I could fix this by going back to a UVTOOLS version prior to 4.4.3 because I used it for over a year a while back with no 2-stage timing stuff. Is it possible UVTOOLS is mis-reading the pwmx file format version or something? I see it has the capability to save in 3 formats for pwmx, and when I tried all 3 then diff'd them with the slicer copy... all were very different.

[sn4k3]

UVtools does not set any TSMC values by itself. If you find a file that does send here without saving with UVtools (A copy directly from slicer)
Additionally if you use Version 1 or 515 of file format, it's impossible to set or use any TSMC as that information is not available in the file.
TSMC are supported only in 516 or above

I'm pretty sure I could fix this by going back to a UVTOOLS version prior to 4.4.3

Nothing related to TSMC was touched in v5. However you can try revert back to v4.4.3 and report back with the result.

[KurtMF]

I confirmed that UVTools thinks my pwmx file is v 516, as saved by slicer. Nevertheless, there is no 2 stage timing settings in slicer for the Mono X (also printer manual shows simple single-stage timing settings for this model, I never even heard of TSMC before I upgraded UVTools to 4.4.3 and started investigating why it now shows 2 timings and lift distances).

Also re-confirmed that UVTools displays 2 stage timing values which are mostly changed from what I saved in slicer. And again, the file from slicer shows a print time of 6 hours when I load it in printer, and the UVTools version, saved without changing anything, has an extra 2.5 hours added to the print time, as the printer sees it.

If you want to look at it, I've attached the print file as saved directly by Photon Workshop 3.5.0. My printer thinks it will take approx. 6 hours, which agrees with slicer estimate. After saving a separate copy in UVTools without changing anything, the UVTools copy shows approx. 8.5 hours print time on my printer, since it has mistakenly put lower speeds in for 2 stage lift on normal layers (and mistaken my printer for being TSMC compatible?). UVTools is adding 2.5 hours of print time without my telling UVTools to change anything.

Since neither the factory slicer nor the factory printer support TSMC, I'm thinking UVTools should not either.
Eighth Panel (Meshed).zip

[sn4k3]

Again, UVtools does not think nor change anything by default. When you first load the file, UVtools loads the file EXACTLY as slicer did.
All that information you see was set by slicer and UVtools just show that to you:

They can mess up the file as they want because that data if not used by printer will not impact anything. However, UVtools have no way to know, and all data set is used for calculations, because of that is impacting the time calculation as you observe. You have the option to ignore or sanitize the file by setting no TSMC. Additionally, UVtools will turn on advanced flag to print per layer data instead of global data, which can introduce problems, this is again because anycubic mess up file with misinformation. This printer IMO should never support the v516.

My advice: Convert file to version 1

[KurtMF]

UVTools is changing something, because it mysteriously adds 2.5 hours to my print time. From what you say, it is likely that slicer has invalid values for fields not used by this printer, but UVTools is using those values as if they are valid. Perhaps there's a flag set in the 516 file which tells the printer not to use 2 stage timing fields, and UVTools is changing that flag on save. That's just a theory.

I will try to save my file as version 1, and see if that preserves the correct lift timing and print time.

[KurtMF]

I just sliced and saved a trivial print file -1cm cube- then loaded it into UVTools, did save as, exited, then did a diff on the 2 files:
D:\kurtf\Documents\LED Cube\LED Cube Base>fc /b "Cube (Meshed).pwmx" "Cube (Meshed)_34m_1ml_copy.pwmx" Comparing files Cube (Meshed).pwmx and CUBE (MESHED)_34M_1ML_COPY.PWMX 00000068: 1D A4 00000069: 5A 70 0000006A: 84 7D 00000084: 00 01 00000088: 38 2C 00000089: 05 08

My printer shows the UVTools copy takes 35m to print, the original only 30m. I'm still trying to check this, but I suspect it's because the invalid values in those fields you show in the slicer file for normal layers are causing the added print time. UVTools exports to v1, v515, and v516 also report the extra 5m print time.

[KurtMF]

Ok here's what I think is happening. Photon slicer does not expose settings for TSMC or for having separate lift/retract settings on base layers and on normal layers. Also, Mono X manual does not discuss these settings. However, you say 516 format supports these settings, and UVTools exposes them to the user.

When I load my slicer output file in UVTools, it shows correct timing and lift for base layers, but slow speeds and insufficient lift for normal layers. Those normal layer values are not set in the slicer UI, and they are invalid and are the reason UVTools adds extra time to print jobs, and only lifts 4.16 mm on each exposure instead of the 6 mm I specified. And one of those 6 bytes in the print file which were changed by UVTools is causing my printer to use the invalid separate settings for normal layers encoded in the file, whereas when I print the slicer version, those values are ignored by my printer, and the values stored in the fields for base layer are used for all layers.

So my printer hardware actually does support having these separate settings, but Anycubic has chosen to keep these settings hidden from users, and the Anycubic slicer fails to populate them. My printer ignores these extra/invalid settings when printing from slicer file. But when printing from UVTools copy my printer uses these extra/invalid settings. This has to be because of those 6 bytes changed by UVTools when it saved my otherwise unmodified slicer file.

Who is the owner of the 516 file format? Anycubic? Or is it a wider industry standard? Is there something in the file definition which tells the printer to only use base layer settings and not both? Or sets some kind of mode? Do you know what those 6 bytes do?

Thanks for taking the time to look at this. I've been grateful to have UVTools over the last few years to clean up my prints, and I've learned much through it's reading references.