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Dual Direct Drive Extruders Concept

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by Tony Janus, Nov 8, 2014.

  1. Bjorn

    Bjorn Member

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    I really like the Z adjustment of both the new dual extruders.. slide 'n lock with a grubscrew.. perfect alignment for the Chimera.
    Cant wait to get one of them. :)
     
  2. Magic-Goat

    Magic-Goat Member

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    Will the power supply need to be upgraded for the second extruder?
     
  3. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Nope.
     
    2 people like this.
  4. Magic-Goat

    Magic-Goat Member

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  5. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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  6. Stargrove1

    Stargrove1 Member

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    Yes you need to .... I could confirm
     
  7. Magic-Goat

    Magic-Goat Member

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    I'll get them ordered tonight. I want to stick with geared steppers if possible as i've heared EZ struder style is meant to reduce surface quality due to decreased number of stepps?

    I've never tuned the stepper drivers before, i just need to adjust the resister to the lowest value possible that still allows smooth movement of the motors right?
     
  8. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    I think the EZStruder is very similar to other direct drives. I just liked it because it's injection molded and has some other niceties vs printing my own. It's also real easy to remove the filament from the line vs something that you'd have to unscrew.

    Tuning the drivers is pretty easy. Your tool kit hopefully came with a blue plastic flat head screw driver, which is ideal for tuning.

    What I do is tell it to extrude 100mm of filament. With it extruding I'll turn back (counter clockwise) on the potentiometer until it starts to stall, then tune it JUST above the point where it starts to flow again. This should still have plenty of torque and not get too hot.
     
  9. Magic-Goat

    Magic-Goat Member

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    Then why use a geared motor if there's no noticeable print quality difference? Because the geared motor will be bigger and heavier won't it?

    And thanks for the info, I was wondering what that plastic screwdriver was for :p
     
  10. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Guess I misunderstood your question.

    Gearing helps torque, allowing you to print better in bowden setups without torque stall. Also helps with direct feed but generally has the same quality on direct feed as direct drive.
     
  11. Magic-Goat

    Magic-Goat Member

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    Sorry I could have worded it better :p. I'm going with the geared motors, Thanks for the explanation :)
     
  12. Tony Janus

    Tony Janus Member

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    Hey all, sorry I've been away for so long. Been working on a project that's taken up all my time. I just updated all the files on thingiverse, should be a working version now. I still have to make the fan though, but pretty much complete otherwise.

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:565616/#files

    Also, Mike, is there any need for the geared stepper if using a wades extruder for the bowden since the assembly has gears?
     
  13. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    No but then your gearing will be different between the direct feed and bowden drive, which affects your Esteps
     
  14. Tony Janus

    Tony Janus Member

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    So then I'm confused. Does marlin not support separate settings for the two extruder motors?
     
  15. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    It only has one Esteps per mm spot in the firmware. It might work with 2 but that's out of my depth of knowledge
     
  16. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Sailfish might, but I am not sure what other changes (i.e. hardware) might be required to support that versus Marlin.
     
  17. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Yeah I don't think sailfish can run on Arduino. Might be wrong about that though as I don't know what chip the replicators use
     
  18. Tony Janus

    Tony Janus Member

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    Hm, well that's all very disappointing news. I had envisioned this using the extruder from thingiverse as my direct drive and then using the stock wades (with herringbone gears) as the bowden drive. It seems from a few other forums that I can either modify feedrate and test and test until I hone in on the right setting, or use two of the same extruder. Mike, you say the EZstruder is a safe bet to go with for both the direct and bowden? Or will this extruder I've used on my design provide enough torque for bowden? I have a 5.2:1 geared stepper I believe, but only 1. If I ordered another one of those, or two of the ones you posted earlier, than extruder design shouldn't matter, correct? Sorry to bombard with more questions.

    Also, updated again. Few things should fit better now, also fully operational far as I can tell.

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:565616
     
  19. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yep, I finally found this list:

    http://reprap.org/wiki/List_of_Firmware
     
  20. Magic-Goat

    Magic-Goat Member

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