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The most obvious solution is to pause the print and swap filament for another color.
Another option is to splice pieces of filament together, though this does not allow very precise control of when the switch happens. There is also a device that can automatically slice filament this way.
Finally, another option that uses very little external equipment is ...
8
After trying many different things, I found out that the solution is really simple and requires only a few lines of code. I'll answer my own question in the hope that this will help someone.
First, I defined a few constants (macros actually). To keep my own stuff separate, I created a new file for them called myconfig.h:
#define MY_BED_TEMP_THRESHOLD 50
#...
7
I have a dual extruder Replicator 1 and having the nozzles at the same height is a must and albeit a bit of a struggle otherwise. At one point, I had to disassemble my extruder head and the nozzles didn't line up quite right. There after, printing with the lower one obviously didn't have any troubles, however, printing with the high extruder made it so the ...
7
As you suggest yourself, ordering test prints of some model is one way to do it.
3D Hubs and MakeXYZ allows you to get your model printed by hobbyists and small businesses for a fair price. Both sites also allow you to order prints based on printer type, which I believe is what you may be looking for.
On 3D Hubs, visit on of the trend reports, and select ...
7
I've seen where certain slicers and/or firmware installations will allow you to set pauses mid-print so you can insert a different filament and resume. Such firmware that I'm aware of is Sailfish. I haven't personally used this, but I've heard many great things for people who enjoy tinkering with their machine(s). Alternatively, there are 3D-printable ...
6
Two good options for ROUGH alignment:
For threaded thermal barrier type extruders: use a leveling jig
like this while the extruders are disassembled:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23013
For straight-shaft thermal barrier type extruders: Carefully level
the bed to whichever nozzle is lower, using your preferred piece of
paper / business card / feeler ...
6
Make sure that the bed is level. As the saying goes, a level bed is next to godliness or something like that. Pay extra attention to the direction the nozzles are offset by (if one nozzle is offset on the X-axis, pay extra attention to the bed leveling along the X-axis). This can be done with just one nozzle and a business card or piece of paper.
Use a ...
5
I started this as a comment, but it got too long. I have been working for much too long on a multi-extruder printer, and so I understand that the fixed, dual-head designs are somewhat fraught with problems.
I am assuming that this is a mechanism in which the two nozzles are inline in the X-axis, the Y-axis is parallel to the bed and normal to the line ...
5
Not an expert by any means but I can’t see any reason you couldn’t use one half of a dual extruder. The benefits of not using one though would be decreased extruder weight. Especially given that this is a direct drive so there will be two stepper motors I believe. Reduced weight means faster print times and a reduction in certain print artifacts such as ...
5
Ninjaflex dual-extrudes great with ABS. I've done a fair amount of NF/ABS dualstrusion. Frankly, any TPU will probably work, since molten polyurethane sticks to practically anything.
The main challenge is ooze control since TPUs tend to ooze a lot. You're going to want to use a printing temp on the low end of the range for the flexible filament, and use ...
5
Another approach is Mosaic Manufacturing's Palette – it appears to a single extruder 3D printer as a filament reel, but it is creating a custom filament on-the-fly by
pulling information from a multi-extruder .gcode file to determine the length, and the order, each color segment needs to be.
The device was a successful Kickstarter campaign and as far as ...
4
Answering this question fully depends on the type of printer you have. Some printers have a pause capability, while others do not. Some have multiple extruders, while most do not. Some have a tube leading to the extruder and others do not. You specifically are asking about dealing with more than two colors when you have a dual-extruder, but the question ...
4
I don't have dual extruder printer myself, but to my understanding having both nozzles leveled at the same height is critical for getting successful prints.
For typical FDM printers, the lowest point of the end effector should always be the nozzle. If you, for instance, mount a fan lower than the tip of your nozzle, it will eventually collide with the ...
4
Another option, that I found was the simplest one that worked for me:
Level your bed using just the first nozzle (temporarily lock the 2nd nozzle higher than the 1st one).
Move the printhead at the center of the bed
Loosen the grub screws on both nozzles (IMPORTANT, don't skip this step)
If you're not using a glass bed, temporarily clip a sheet of glass on ...
4
Thanks to the comments, I was able to narrow down the specific issues in the firmware. The firmware version was really out of date, so I recommend finding the latest stable version.
Therefore, I found the latest stable version of Marlin, downloaded it, and created my own edited version. I went line by line in configuration.h and configuration_adv.h, with ...
3
This may be too late to help, but I wanted to describe my own experience with the Lulzbot Taz Dual Extruder v3. It was...not good.
In terms of your question, I spent a fair amount of time trying to do exactly this. It is possible, but there are some major caveats:
If you are not printing with both extruders, you need to leave the one not in use unloaded. ...
3
The first multi material add-on version off J. Prusa includes several separate steppers that load filament into the hot end. Note that selecting an other color will retract the existing filament so that the next filament can be loaded. There is no mixing hotend nozzle. It is therefore working serial, not parallel. Working 2 steppers at the same time will ...
3
If your printer has no way to move the heads up and down, or otherwise out of the way, and your slicer isn't able to detect collisions and account for head height differences in the produced G code, then they must be at exactly the same height from the bed.
If extruder A is hanging lower than extruder B, then when B has printed at a certain level, and A ...
3
"Make" Magazine compares 3-D printers in a way that is as scientific as possible to help determine the strengths/weaknesses of each 3-D printer compared to others. The link to the November 2015 comparison test is available here: http://makezine.com/comparison/3dprinters/ I was unable to find the ability to compare among dual-extruders, however.
answered Jun 12 '16 at 2:05
J. Roibal - BlockchainEng
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3
No, M108 does not do that. You are looking for T#, where # is the tool position you want:
T1 ; switch to tool position 1
T3 ; switch to tool position 3
This tells the processor to send all heating, cooling and flow commands to this tool until another tool change is specified, and invokes the X/Y(/Z) offset for the new tool position.
See http://reprap....
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It appears as though you are using (or used) an old version of Cura. More recent releases allow you to insert G-code commands on changing the extruder. You could insert a Z-hop in these sections.
Extruder End G-code: First set the extruder in a relative mode, move up 2 mm, set absolute again:
G91
G1 Z2
G90
Extruder Start G-code: First set the extruder in ...
2
The standard option is to change out filaments at certain times during the print. Software to add these pauses to your print automatically are around, with one (ColorPrint). This method works if you only want to change at a certain Z height, and not intermix colors on the same levels.
The other newer development that works for many printers (this works for ...
2
I have the same printer you do. I recall that the ooze shield is printed in alternating layers; first from E0 and then the next layer from E1. But on a given layer, I don't think that there is a guarantee that the ooze shield will be printed in the filament about to be laid down for the part of the layer. (But I might be wrong on this.) But when it comes ...
2
It appears (now confirmed in your question) that you are using a Chimera 2-in-2-out hotend like depicted below:
Chimera hotends generally use all-metal heat breaks (not confirmed yet) which are harder to operate than "normal" PTFE lined hotends. A common problem that happens is that heat creeps up causing problems as a result of too slow printing or too ...
2
It doesn't work that way, or perhaps in some sense it already does.
The "straw effect" you're describing depends on the water not being under any pressure that exceeds the outside atmosphereic pressure. If you squeeze the straw or otherwise apply pressure, it will immediately spill out.
If you're printing at more than a ridiculously slow print ...
answered Aug 10 '20 at 0:02
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
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2
In a true dual-extruder / dual hot-end printer, having a seal isn't necessary.
On my dual-extruder printer, the non-active extruder does an aggressive retraction and then drops the hot-end temp down to a stand by temperature which is lower than the melting point of the filament. Because it had an aggressive retraction ... and it's cooling ... the filament ...
2
Yes and No
Yes, if you have two full hotends, you can easily print with two filament types.
Yes, if you have one hotend and both filaments melt at a very similar temperature or are the same polymer, then you can use a Prusa MMU style or splicing machine.
No, if you have only one hotend and the two materials are very dissimilar in their print temperatures (...
2
What you want is a dual extruder, dual nozzle, dual hot-end printer, a printer with two entire print heads.
That model is mostly for color, like a black and white panda, or a green and rainbow lizzard, of the same material.
Your problem is going to be the mixing of both materials in the hot end.
If I were you, I would invest the extra cash into a dual print ...
2
You have a problem with retraction or more broadly with what happens to the material in the inactive extruder while it's waiting to be used again. I'm not sure what your printer does, but there are various strategies for how to handle this, which can possibly be mixed:
doing nothing and letting it make a mess
a large amount of extra retraction to get the ...
answered Aug 21 '21 at 17:14
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
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This will not work as you intend.
The heaters are designed to be independent. They do not share a thermal path between them. The thermal load on the two extruders will be different whenever one nozzle is active and the other on standby, and there is no condition when both are extruding at the same time.
The two thermistors are needed so that each nozzle ...
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