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Dual Extruder Kit Updates?

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

  1. ErnieN

    ErnieN New Member

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    No difference printwise, but it pauses for a few seconds whenever a splice is made. I suppose it would make a difference with hundreds of splices, but I try to limit the number of splices to less than 100.

    It has to build the transition tower though, and that’s what really kills it. 40% more time on the average building that useless block of plastic, but I’ve had cases where it was more like 600%!

    My best uses for it so far are custom colored PEZ heads, drink coasters and colorful name tags. Attempts to do things bigger than that are very time consuming and risky. I’ve done a few colored models I found on Thingiverse, but usually I have to scale them down, sometimes way down, like half the size to get them to fit along with the transition tower.

    BTW: If you are willing to babysit your print and clean up the stringy mess after each layer, you can get by without a transition tower by using side transitions. It still has to purge the extra plastic, but it dumps the plastic to the side instead of building a transition tower. Unfortunately, unmodified the R2 doesn't support moving the hotend beyond the confines of the bed. I was thinking of an invention: a metal strip about an inch wide that you can attach to the right side of your bed to route material over the side and away from the bed. You would still have to babysit the first few layers, but losing about half an inch of the right side of your bed is better than losing half of your entire bed.
     
    #21 ErnieN, Apr 11, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2018
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  2. Geof

    Geof Volunteer Moderator
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    I tend to try to tell people (model dependent of course) that you will be at least 10x slower doing multicolor. This is true of ALL systems that are available so far. The Pallete has to purge out all the first color when it changes to a 2nd color, so for example from black to white will be a material and time killer for sure to purge out all the"grey". the prints are VERY cool when done, but time and material wise quite expensive :D
     
  3. ErnieN

    ErnieN New Member

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    But that's not the case with dual extruders, right? I mean you just stop extruding white on one extruder and start extruding black on the second extruder.
     
  4. Geof

    Geof Volunteer Moderator
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    correct, after a ooze shield or wipe tower. But for instance my sigma, still a drastic loss of time from ext 1 going home, extruder 2 getting to temp and purging, then the wipe or ooze shield (or both if needed) then printing and repeat for every single layer :D
     
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Well, two extruders is somewhat faster for dual color (if you model and slice it that way -- and make no mistake the models must be done with dual extrusion in mind and the slicer has to deal with this too). But the hassles of doing all that just for multiple colors ... I vote -- nope. Something like the palette is painless in comparison.
     
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  6. drbanks

    drbanks Active Member

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    Prusa is promising that his redesigned 5-spool MMU for the i3 will also know how to make infill out of the splice transition. I'll believe it when I see it, but it does seem like this is the direction that a lot of people who are frustrated with the standard dual extruder setup are taking, and the palette is one of the first movers in this area. Expect it to get better over time.

    Having said that, the 3D Printing Nerd used an i3 MK2 MMU and said that between the purge tower and what happens when the print fails, expect to see your total filament usage to almost double overall. To me, not something to undertake if you're impatient or can't afford a lot of filament.
     
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  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Filament is cheap*
    Time is precious :) I don't have time to be messing with doing that to the model and slicer just for colors... I can airbrush it in a jiffy if color matters. Frankly. for us, we almost never care about color anyway (function over form...)

    This is really early days yet technology wise and in 10 more years we will look back and think "how quaint" :)


    *at least 90% of what I use is cheap -- we do a few things in specialty ones, but the bulk of it is dirt-cheap stuff.
     
  8. ErnieN

    ErnieN New Member

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    Say, if any Palette+ users are tired of using the box it came in as a spool holder, I’ve designed my own spool holder just for it at Thingiverse, search for “SpoolBoy”.
     
  9. DavidR

    DavidR Member

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    To me dual extrusion would be worth it just for soluble support filaments. @WheresWaldo @Geof, I feel like I read on these forums about a couple of months ago someone posted a conversation they had with Robo management that said they had just put up the dual extrusion firmware and were sending out units for beta testing. I believe he said if that phase had no hiccups it would be about 2 months subsequent to the end of testing that the upgrade kits would become available. I can't remember what post it was on but I could swear I saw someone write something to that effect on these forums circa six weeks ago.
     
  10. Geof

    Geof Volunteer Moderator
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    All I can say is they are still working on it and nobody outside of Robo has laid hands on any kind of upgrade yet and as of now there is still no official upgrade available.
     
  11. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    Well the firmware is not in their GITHUB, there is a branch for it but nothing has been done. @mark tomlinson kludged the old firmware to make it work with his dual extruder C2. but nothing official from Robo. I will say again what I have said before, 'It ain't real until it ships. And, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen anytime soon.'
     
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  12. drbanks

    drbanks Active Member

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    I've been thinking about that a lot lately, like I want to do that, then I see that PVA costs about 3x what PLA costs and realize you've really gotta be committed to go this route.
     
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  13. Geof

    Geof Volunteer Moderator
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    You got it. My sigma runs pva prints and they become very high dollar quickly, clients are slowly moving away from it in favor of standard supports due to the high cost. Sometimes its great...other times...its just damn expensive...dont get me started on fails and general waste involved
     
  14. Jerome Helbert

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    I happened across one of 3D Printing Nerds videos a few weeks ago where he used a feature of simplify3D that used your normal material for most of the support then only used the PVA as the interface layer:
     
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  15. drbanks

    drbanks Active Member

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    That's an excellent idea, although for MMU solutions like the palette, you're still likely to spend a lot of pva in the purge block. Just less overall, I would hope.
     
  16. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yea, less filament switching means less purge.
     

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