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Dual Extruder Kit Updates?

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by Hellsbells17, Mar 13, 2018.

  1. Hellsbells17

    Hellsbells17 Member

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    Has anybody heard any updates on the dual extruder kit that is supposed to be coming out for the R2?
     
  2. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    My own opinion, don't hold your breathe. The real issue is not adding the hardware, it is making sure the firmware works as expected. I have not seen much recent work on the current firmware for dual extruder. I am sure when they get that work done it will be very quick to build a second extruder kit.
     
  3. Hellsbells17

    Hellsbells17 Member

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    Well that really sucks. I bought this printer with the intentions that it would eventually be a dual extruder. If there is not hope for that then I might was well sell it and get another printer that has dual extruders.
     
  4. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    That is a decision that only you can make. I still like the hardware despite not having dual extrusion. What is your use case for dual extrusion?
     
  5. Hellsbells17

    Hellsbells17 Member

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    I print complex parts that have undercuts, etc.
     
  6. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    Maybe you can discuss this with @Geof, he has some experience with dual extruder printers and can point you in directions you might not of thought of.

    From your answer my guess is multi-material.
     
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  7. Hellsbells17

    Hellsbells17 Member

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    One of the images on their website shows a R2 with dual extruders so they must be working on it.
     

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  8. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    I said they were working on it, but it is firmware that lags behind hardware. The hardware is easy, so easy in fact that another volunteer admin (@mark tomlinson) did it to his C2 printer. You can ask him about all the hoops he had to jump through to make the hardware actually print something.

    It is easy to mock up a picture, people do it all the time.
     
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  9. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yea, that was a huge barrel of not-fun. Their current firmware is NOT ready for dual-extrusion. Like @WheresWaldo said the hardware is really pretty easy (I have a thread on it for the C2, no harder for the R2). With the firmware not being dual-ready you are still out of luck. If you are an advanced Marlin user you can get dual-extrusion going with some spelunking.
     
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  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    If you DO update the firmware to work on your own you are then caught in a place of never being able to let Robo do firmware updates :)
     
  11. Geof

    Geof Volunteer Moderator
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    Feel free to PM me about dual extrusion in general. I have no opinion on the dual extrusion for the R2, I havent seen it so its not available at this time :D. Do call Robo and explain your frustration, its possible they can give some better insight than anyone on the forum can (since we arnt the ones working on it, they are).

    Complex overhangs and the such that people use PLA supports with typically have similar results with PVA supports, but can certainly and happily talk with you about it and could possibly send you some prints off my Sigma if your ok with paying for the PVA used (its expensive...too expensive)
     
  12. adikted2astro

    adikted2astro Active Member

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    Well, I got tired of waiting for the dual extrusion kit. I bit the bullet and bought a Palette+. Honestly, I need it more than ever now. I will give a full review of it when I do a few prints. I'm actually really excited because they've added a few features in their newest software release (this was one of the reasons I bought it). Plus - and I especially like this part - they apparently have legendary customer service; something I most certainly care about.

    p.s. legendary = awesome
     
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  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Excellent. Someone else had a thread about it and the results were largely positive. Frankly (IMHO) it is the correct way to do multiextrusion (and I can say that having done it the other way, actually two other ways on two different printers).
     
  14. adikted2astro

    adikted2astro Active Member

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    There are benefits and drawbacks to both methods, but this one does seem a lot more simple. I honestly can't imagine myself trying to align two nozzles to the same z-offset. That sounds horrible.
     
  15. drbanks

    drbanks Active Member

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    I generally like the idea, and it certainly has fewer problems than multiple extruders, but:

    1) 'spensive. Could buy a decent printer for that much money
    2) I'm burning through filament fast enough already that I don't need a third to a half of the filament going to making multicolored blocks.
     
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  16. adikted2astro

    adikted2astro Active Member

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    That was one of the drawbacks that kept me from buying a long time ago. However, they have added new features in their software to minimize waste that sound promising: side transitioning, variable transition lengths, infill transitioning, and layer batching
     
  17. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yea, if you don't need multi filament (multi-material is the real win for dual extruders, not multi-color) they are cool.
    You can still do multi-material with it I think, but like our Delta that shares a single extruder for two-filaments, it adds a lot of time to the print. I just design around multi-extrusion 90% of the time. Color matters not, I will paint/airbrush it if that matters for a much better finish anyway :)
     
  18. adikted2astro

    adikted2astro Active Member

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    Well I bought the palette for both multimaterial and multicolor. Granted my print times will quadruple (or more) but that’s ok as long as it works!!
     
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  19. ErnieN

    ErnieN New Member

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    I've been using a Palette+ for quite a while. Side transitions don't work for the C2 or R2, not sure about the R1. I played around with variable length transitions; anything other than Auto makes either the quality of the color transitions worse or bed adhesion worse- your choice! But you get a slightly smaller transition tower. Infill transitions only save about 6% of the material wasted in the transition tower, layer batching is good if you like to glue your mono-colored parts together afterwards to make one that's bigger and more colorful.

    That being said, I still love it for making tiny multi-colored models on my R2. ;-)

    Oh, although they don't recommend it, I've had great success splicing together ABS filament using the default PLA settings.
     
    #19 ErnieN, Mar 31, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2018
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  20. Hellsbells17

    Hellsbells17 Member

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    How much slower is the R2 using the Palette?
     

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