Over the past week, Marcio very kindly worked with me on getting my Dual Extruder v3.1 working properly on my Taz 6 with the Archim 2 board.
The first profile he wrote for it had the extruders reversed so the number 1 extruder head was swapped in software with the number 2 extruder. Once he got that figured out and the extruders heating in the proper order, he had the insight to check to see if all the fans were working like they should. At first the center fan which runs all the time was the only one that was working and after checking my hardware set up he determined that the problem was in software and we were able to get the fans to come on as they should. I will soon be working with the extruder to try to figure out better, how to print with it. I have had pretty nice results with it in the past. In any case, for anyone else with this type of extruder, Marcio has a printer profile that should work.
One of the issues I ran into with the Dual Extruder in the past was the wipe tower is turned on by default in the Cura LE profile and for the most part, you really don’t need it, especially if you are using PVA for support. The wipe tower tends to not adhere to the build plate and if the print you are doing is higher than about an inch it tends to break off. I finally just turned it off in Cura LE and it made printing a lot more enjoyable. When I was using a wipe tower I was always stressing out worrying about if the wipe tower was going to break off. It also makes printing go a lot faster without it.
Awesome! I have a dual extruder for my Taz 6 but I don’t use it that much. Do you print much multiextrusion?
You mean print with one material and support with another? That’s why I got mine but for about the last year I have not done much printing with it at all. I was having a lot of trouble with it clogging all the time so this fall I got the 3.1 upgrade but after I got that, the dual extruder profile for the Archim 2 controller card had problems. The heater blocks were reversed. They showed up as No 1 and 2 in Cura LE but one the printer they were backward. I got Marcio to work with me and he changed the printer flash software to put the nozzles in the correct order, then he changed his code again so that the side fans would work as they should.
Yesterday I spent a lot of the day trying to set e-steps for TPU filament then tried a print using TPU for the main print and ABS for support and found that the gcode did not print as a dual extruder but as a single print head and the 2 filaments were printing side by side not where they were supposed to be printing.
I am trying to upload a pic I took while it was printing. Its kind of messy looking but the print I got was useable. Orange is the TPU and gray is the ABS which broke off but you can see from where the brim is located that the ABS support is printing offset from the actual print and was not going to provide adequate support anyway. I let it print and it came out reasonably well and I was able to use it. Cura LE doesn’t seem to recognize my Taz 6 now that it has the Archim 2 board. At this point I want to talk to Marcio or anybody else who has experience using the Dual Extruder v3/3.1 with the Archim 2 board and tell me what your work-around is. I am open to use other slicers but until I ran into this issue, Cura LE seemed to work OK.
(I can’t tell if the photo I uploaded got uploaded correctly or not)
For the most part the Dual Extruder v3.1 is working a lot better than it was before the .1 upgrade, which positions the front fan about 1/8 inch out from the heat break vanes and did not jam at all yesterday. I’m really close to having a fully performing dual extruder. I need to figure out this one offset issue.
I am doing another test print this morning. What I found out is that Cura LE offsets the No 1 extruder -6.5 mm and the No. 2 Extruder is offset 6.5 mm, then Marlin software had the No. 2 extruder offset 13 mm. I left Cura LE settings alone and set Marlin/Drunken Octopus to No offset for then No. 2 extruder and that seems to have done the trick.
I will be doing a good bit more Dual Extruder printing in the coming week.
This is what the thing I was printing yesterday is going to be used for. Cowl and camera holder for a 3" drone. Its not pretty but its functional enough to put it to use. The larger holes in the back are to keep antennas out of the propeller blades.
That is an awesome project! I bought my dual extruder to do PLA and PVA prints but over time spend most of my time with an itworks 3d print head. At this point I’m considering converting everything to 1.75 filament after I run out of 2.85.
Thank you!
I’ve printed 1.75 mm on my stock Single Extruder and it worked great! I had a whole standard roll of it. I just followed the parameters that Lulzbot has on their website.
I design and print kayakers and other characters as small display objects.
Jim Mallard’s Web site (jimmallard3.com)
and when I started having trouble with the dual extruder v3 jamming, I figured out how to cut my models into parts and print them then assemble them afterward. I primarily use white IC3D ABS to print things and will probably continue to do my art prints that way. Most of the kayak prints are done in 3 or 4 parts, then superglued together. Right now I anticipate using the dual extruder to print TPU parts for drone applications. Right now I’m just happy to be able to print with a tool head I spent $500 for and never really got it working right before.
I’ll probably never run out of 2.85 but would buy 1.75 for filaments that are not available in 2.85
I have always run itworks tool heads. I recently moved on to hermera though so I have two aero tool heads just sitting here that I won’t bother using because I’d have to flash back and forth.
One standard and one volcano.
I’m in a similar position. I have two itworks tool heads and really only use the one. I’ve been considering moving to a hemera based tool head.
You can’t go wrong with it.
Hi,
I just updated a Taz 6 with the dual extrusion V.3 to Arkham 2 board and I’m having a few issues with it.
When it goes to wipe at the beginning of the print it only wipes the left nozzle versus both nozzles at the same time.
Also the probing sequence is different than it was with the stock firmware.
Do you think you could help me?
Please see attached picture of wiping.
I also have a video if I could send it to u direct.
Thanks
I just looked at mine and realized that my dual extruder is behaving the same way. The only thing I can think to do at this point is talk to Marcio and see if he can write some code to correct it.
I just wasn’t paying real close attention.
Is your dual extruder printing OK otherwise?
Printing is fine…
Thanks