# 3D Printing > 3D Printers (Hardware) >  My 3 Color Mixing Printer

## AutoWiz

Hello. I started with a geetech prusa i3 pro b or c I purchased from ebay. I detailed the building of that here:
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...d.php?t=269457
And then I got started on making my own printer. pictures of that can be seen here:
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...d.php?t=270130
This is my new custom built printer..

----------


## AutoWiz

So this new machine I created can print pretty decent..



And it can print well in any 1 color that I start the print off in..



But what is happening is that whatever 2 filaments sit in the beginning unused and at temp, the filaments seize to the all metal heatbreak. I read about the ideas of cooking oil and turning off retraction and don't really like those ideas. For now I have 3 ptfe lined heatbreaks coming. I know this will remedy my problems for now but this is gonna be no good later if I wanna start printing in abs.

----------


## curious aardvark

you can actually buy 3 in 1 ready made mixer extruders. 
Might be easier in the long run. 

Though I like the chunky way you've made your own :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

I wanted to build one because I found this 3 in 1 out mixing extruder on ebay and thought it would be awesome to have. But as the project progressed I didn't find too many other models of a 3 filament printer to go off of or at least loosely base my plans off of.  So everything you see is what my mind could come up with. I mounted the 3 spools 45 degrees from each other and did the same with the wade extruders and then tilted each one back 45 degrees and ran the filament the specific way I did so its path would keep an arc that is compatible to the natural bend in the filament from being wrapped around the spool. Maybe I over thought that. This is only my hobby. I am used to building on a larger scale:
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...d.php?t=271354
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...d.php?t=242081
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...d.php?t=241858
http://www.mp3car.com/forum/general/...al-time-tuning
http://www.mp3car.com/forum/mp3car-t...controller-bcm

I could post a bunch more links. I have a lot of build threads. I love to build. I will continue to revise this printer again and again first to make it function well, And then to make it take up less real estate, and finally I will try to make it easy on the old eyes.

----------


## AutoWiz

So my new printer has been having filament jamming issues. I have tracked this down these 3 little pieces called "heatbreak" They are the threaded sleeve that attaches the heatsink to the hotend and filament passes through this sleeve. These sleeves are metal and the hot filament seems to be glueing itself to the walls if these sleeves. here is a picture of the heatsinks removed from the hotend..



In the above picture I am 2/3 of the way to my solution. The sleeves with the narrow part on them are solid metal with a 2mm hole for filament to pass through. I got 3 heatbreaks for mk8 extruders. these are ptfe lined. I pulled out the ptfe lining and cut them to the proper length. Look how deep the ptfe tube slides into the all metal heatbreak..




Now look at how far the same tube slides into the sleeves I got with the ptfe lining removed..




All the way to the very tip. Now there is a reason for this. the thin part of the all metal part in theory is supposed to promote a good well defined small area transition zone where the filament is in a semi molten state. This might have benefits for abs printing where ptfe lined tubes aren't good all the way to the hotend, but I am only using pla and plan on getting or building an enclosed machine before I even try to satart printing abs. So this seems like a best possible solution for me. But there is one more problem. The sleeves I am using are m6x1.0 and the old all metal sleeves are m6x1 on the hotend side and m7x1 going into the e3d heatsink. Simple fix with a m6x1.0 thread repair kit..





Instead of thread locker I use some high quality thermal paste here..



and here..



And I put it back together with some clear ptfe tubing instead of that white stuff. I think it looks better..




Hopefully I will have some pictures to post of some awesome multi colored prints soon.

----------


## 3dex ltd

This is a really cool build thread. Do you have any pictures of a finished print?

----------


## Talon 3D

Really nice work on this. I am really interested in how it works once you get it all working right.
Great job!!

----------


## AutoWiz

I printed out a thin small cup with each color separately. I have no pictures of those finished but they did print and rather nice. But this jamming issue has kept me from a single color print. While there is a curve for me to understand how to actually mix the colors or have multiple extruders pushing filament at the same time, I am keen on how to print with multiple extruders. After the most recent mod everything started out right, and then jammed..



I smelled something and think that maybe this clear ptfe tubing might have a lower melting temp than the white stuff. So this evening I am tearing it all back down to inspect my theory and if so to switch back to the white tubes

----------


## AutoWiz

Tore the print head back down again. Found what I expected..



The filament glued itself to the inside of the clear ptfe tubing I got and installed when I modded the heatbreaks. Simple solution. re installed the other white ptfe tubes I originally had on..



And I am trying to print something out tonight

----------


## AutoWiz

So far it's looking good..

----------


## AutoWiz

I have finally gotten the positive results I was looking for. It would have been right earlier, But I switched to this clear ptfe tubing and apparently it does not hold up or perform as well at operating temps. And that is my bad. I broke the golden rule of tuning and diagnostics. You make one change at a time and gauge results before proceeding to the next step. I know better. My custom made heatbreaks really did the trick. And here is a cone I made..





The red filament is still having troubles because there is something wrong with that length of ptfe tubing. the filament is not as easy to push through it as the other 2. So from here my very next step is to fire up the other printer or use this printer and design a new mounting system for the 3 wade extruders in an effort to make the ptfe tubes as short as possible to reduce drag and make it easier for the extruders to move the filament. And I dumped the entire spool of blue filament I had on here. I couldn't find the brand I like in glow in the dark blue and went with this other kind and it was a real bad quality. the filament just snaps and breaks so easy. So I replaced that spool with some black I had left over that was the name I like to use.

----------


## curious aardvark

good looking print - congratulations :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

Thank you, aardvark. I printed out some new mounts and moved the extruders to the top of the frame in a place where I believe the hoses are as short as they can be..





All back together and I am gonna try to print something with 3 colors tonight.

----------


## Talon 3D

Your project is looking good. Nice work.
What kind of tri-color form are you thinking of making?

----------


## AutoWiz

Well, it isn't perfect, but it can't be put down because it is my very first successful 3 color print..



At the very least this is progress. From here it is a matter of identifying issues and finding solutions one at a time. I will probably re-print this cone a handful of more times making changes in between until it prints decent and at different sizes before moving on to printing anything else. I also still have to learn how to create an image in multiple colors.

----------


## AutoWiz

> Your project is looking good. Nice work.
> What kind of tri-color form are you thinking of making?


Thank you. I am or was actually hoping to make more than 3 colors. I am new to 3d printing but have some light experience with Arduino boards and am very experienced at fabrication and electrical/electronic systems in the automotive industry. When I saw the mixing extruder, I thought it could be setup to blend filaments and figured if I loaded in the 3 primary colors then with software controlling feedrates I should be able to make every color in the rainbow. That was the whole purpose behind the 3 gear reduction extruders was to give better control over low feedrates because if you want the same amount of filament out of 2 filaments then the extruders have to run at 1/2 speed. I am learning that control does not exist that I have found, or at least yet. But it is a great idea. I am not a programmer and my programming skills are weak at best. So I wont be writing my own software to make purple out of red and blue. I will find it or it wont happen for me.

----------


## Talon 3D

You are doing a nice job. Three color prints are very cool.
Keep up the good work.




> Thank you. I am or was actually hoping to make more than 3 colors. I am new to 3d printing but have some light experience with Arduino boards and am very experienced at fabrication and electrical/electronic systems in the automotive industry. When I saw the mixing extruder, I thought it could be setup to blend filaments and figured if I loaded in the 3 primary colors then with software controlling feedrates I should be able to make every color in the rainbow. That was the whole purpose behind the 3 gear reduction extruders was to give better control over low feedrates because if you want the same amount of filament out of 2 filaments then the extruders have to run at 1/2 speed. I am learning that control does not exist that I have found, or at least yet. But it is a great idea. I am not a programmer and my programming skills are weak at best. So I wont be writing my own software to make purple out of red and blue. I will find it or it wont happen for me.

----------


## AutoWiz

On the subject of temps..



The large cone on the left was printed at 220c. The 2 cones in the middle were printed at 205 and 210. And the cone all the way on the right was printed with the hotend at 215c. The problem with the first print at 220 was the filament completely liquefied and that showed in the print. I have a suspicion as to why I am getting these temp issues where I need a high temp to properly melt the filament and then it is too much. Here is a blueprint of the diamond hotend..



There is a very large surface area exposed to the cool ambient air vs. such a small surface area for the heater. And look how close the bores for the filament are to the outside of the cone. I would bet my life this does not heat up to a uniform temp throughout. So this is my next focal point. I can not find kapton tape locally so the project is on hold for a few days while I await ebay shipping. I plan to carefully and neatly wrap as much of the hotend as possible with 1 or 2 layers of kapton tape leaving only as much of the tip exposed to the air as would be on any other extruder hotend.

----------


## AutoWiz

I have never been very patient with just about anything in my life. So while I am waiting for the kapton tape to arrive, I used some aluminum foil and tape to make this heat shield and do the same job..



It didn't seem to help in my problem so I moved onto the next step, checking the passages of the mixing hotend for blockage or restrictions. I ordered a special tool set just for this purpose..



And the 2 short bits should explain why I am now waiting on a new mixing hotend. You would not believe how delicate a .35mm or .40mm drill bit can be.

----------


## AutoWiz

Got some parts to throw at this project..

----------


## KDog

I'm assuming that this is the diamond hotend clone that you are using? If it is you might take a look at this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N60tm2eItUw

He explains how to rework the heat break to match an original E3d. Worth a try.

----------


## AutoWiz

This diamond hotend uses 3 E3D v6 heatsinks and all metal heatbreaks. it was not the cheapest diamond hotend I could find. I converted it away from all metal because I am only printing in pla and have been chasing this strange filament jamming issue. I replaced the hotend and still have the same trouble. Obviously I am missing something somewhere. I have 2 other 3d printers now. A geeetech prusa i3 pro b and a monoprice select mini which is a rebranded mylan 200. It has a small build envelope but prints surprisingly decent. And the geeetech has just been a workhorse printing almost every single day of its life since I assembled it. 

I built this entire printer from scratch. I've already been picked on for its chunkiness. And the filament jamming issues have really prevented me from properly assessing all the other important aspects of the 3d printer aside from filament extrusion. So I am going to temporarily remove the diamond hotend and replace it with a traditional single e3d v6 hotend and make some runs. I can even swap extruders to make sure all are fine and verify that all my problems are in the hotend. And then I can swap back to the diamond hotend with a better picture of what my problem is. hopefully. I have already printed out the mount for it and ordered the hotend. Hopefully I will have this printer going shortly.

----------


## PuterPro

Hey AutoWiz!
"I've already been picked on for its chunkiness. " 
Yeah, well forget them. I love it for all it's chunkiness!  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 
There's a real Rube Goldberg feel to it, and I think you did a great job. Fine tuning is always the end step, and Version 2 will be better.

You DO know you'll build a Version 2 don't you? You don't have a choice, it's in your genes to tinker, just like me. LOL

Keep us up on it as you go. Did you get a chance to single it up and test the extruders ?
I'll only be around sporadically, but you've got me watching with anticipation to see for Frankenstein can walk! (Said with the greatest love for your creation!)

Keep plugging, you'll get there.
PuterPro

----------


## Davo

Keep up the great work!

----------


## AutoWiz

Hey thanks guys. So I am desperately trying to get this printer back up and running before Christmas. I have decided to swap to a single e3d v6 hotend and 1 wade extruder just to get some use out of the printer. So I ripped everything apart..



I found this awesome design of a mount with integrated fan duct and I printed it out with the monoprice mini printer..




The X axis ends and carriage are the same parts that came with the ebay printer. Geeetech prusa i3 pro b. I really liked these parts so I printed out a set and used them on this printer but because of a lack of clearance between vertical rods and the frame behind them I had to flip the x axis and mount the stepper motor on the opposite side of the frame farther away from the controller requiring me to use longer wires. So I figured out this trick. I loaded up both x ends in repetier and then before I sliced them in object placement I mirrored the images. And now the motor can mount on the correct side of the frame and it is still facing in front of the frame so it wont rub on anything..



In an effort to make my printer smaller I have taken all the electronics and moved them inside the printer. I have also made a bunch of red support beams to add strength to my structure..



And I cut some holes and put the usb and sd slots right through the side of the printer..

----------


## AutoWiz

Almost done. All the hardware is mounted. This is the smallest I could get things in this frame. I will admit that this was my first custom frame. I am thoroughly disappointed with just about every single aspect of this frame and in the future I have every intention of building a frame myself. All opinions aside, the pieces weren't cut right. I had to modify it to make it fit together when I got it. The holes for the smooth rods at the base of the z axis were not aligned with the top holes in the frame. I had to redesign and print the z axis stepper motor mounts with the holes in the right place. And then it creaks when it is running. I believe this is the y axis stepper motor and idler pulleys pulling the front and rear of the frame together. I made beefy triangulated supports on either side of both the z axis stepper motor and idler. I am anxious to see how that does for the creaking..





I have also converted the x axis end stop to optical to match y and while I am leaving the z axis as mechanical for the moment, I have already acquired 2 proximity sensors for auto bed leveling and when I convert  the printers to aluminum beds I will be able to dump the z axis altogether.

----------


## AutoWiz

And we are back to life..



Every printer should have optical end stops just because of the cool red leds. I have no good reason why I put a max position Y end stop other than to add a cool red led to the rear of the frame. Last step is to design and print a flag for the new x axis optical end stop. And hopefully I will be trying to print with this tonight.

----------


## AutoWiz

Here are some pictures of my Creation Station. The place I go to create when I want to build with plastics..





My printer is done and ready to print but when I tried to start a print last night it heated up but wouldn't start printing. I know this is my settings in marlin. I tuned these for the diamond hotend and had it hold an abnormally long residency time before starting to print to let it heat soak real well, and I had it at a close threshold for the residency timer. So because my extruder temp setting are so far out the hotend swings +/- 10 degrees at times trying to hold a temp. I will correct this tonight and post up some video of my printer printing.

----------


## AutoWiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toloj5ATAMM

----------


## AutoWiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPHwwOHLDe4

----------


## Nicos.s

looks amazing, expecting more prints

----------


## AutoWiz

Well, The e3d v6 hotend solved the jamming issue. But I am now having this other issue. The printer seems to be doing it's job right, that is all axes are tight with no freeplay anywhere. with the belts off x and y move smoothly and freely. And my supports have stopped the creaking of the frame. But now my printer is doing this..



So I reprinted this a bunch of times making adjustments to the temp and extruder steps per mm..



I went as high as 5120 and as low as 3620 without correcting the problem. And it is a lot of steps per mm by design. I have drv8825 1/32 stepping driver boards and a gear reduction wade extruder. In the beginning of all this I thought I was chasing high precision. so the more steps for a given distance of movement the better. I must now believe my problem lies either with the wade extruder, its calibrations / settings, or the ptfe tubing (maybe too long?) So in anticipation of less than stellar performance from this setup, I have already ordered and received a mk8 extruder identical to what came on my geeetech prusa i3 that has been a workhorse for me. So we gotta swap some more parts on the printer..



I am keeping all these hotends and extruders and parts and as soon as I establish a reliable good quality printing machine, I will work my way back to some of the features I have steered away from.

----------


## AutoWiz

I am a Sucessful auto tech 15 years deep into my trade and usually build and chase power in corvettes. This tool is the culmination of all those years of dedicated hard work in my trade and buying and paying off and trading up scantools that were never meant for an individual to purchase. Without the euro software and updates, the purchase price of the snap-on verus edge is $10,400. And that number is subject to snap-ons 18-22% front loaded interest. My whole point here is that I am not building to be cheap or frugal. I am picking everything diy and beyond so I can learn more and I am not oppose to spending money for this effort I just don't want an easy button where I can go straight to high quality prints without even understanding why or how. 



Overnight I designed and printed out this new filament holder to mount to the top of the frame just like I did for my ebay printer. Though I designed this one to work with the spools with a smaller diameter hole in the center.



And here we are all back together and looking a lot like the geeetech printer. But that is ok because it prints pretty darn well. Just that 200x200x180 that is it's limitation.

----------


## techinout

<a href="https://youtu.be/TXpJW1RhCA4" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/TXpJW1RhCA4https://youtu.be/TXpJW1RhCA4

----------


## AutoWiz

I have at this point realized a mistake I made with the single e3d v6 hotend. When I was trying to calibrate the extruder in marlin under default steps per unit (xxx, xxx, xxxx, xxxx) I was playing with the third number which was really the z axis and not the extruder. I made this mistake for 2 reasons. First I am weak with the Arduino software. Not a retard, but far from good with it. And also because I had already bought the mk8 extruder and convinced myself at the first sign of trouble this is what I was doing. So to be fair, in truth, I never gave the e3d v6 hotend the chance it deserved. It is very important I identify these problems for what they are just to keep things objective and the data as correct as possible. I am working on getting a print with the mk8 extruder right now.

----------


## AutoWiz

And the mk8 extruder is a hit. Not just because of the specific extruder I feel but also because I have a known good printer with an mk8 extruder and known good marlin values that I have more or less copied over. I made this thin wall cup..




The cup on the left the home made printer made and the cup on the right was made by the geeetech i3 pro b..



Now I am off to find and print a little boat named benchy

----------


## AutoWiz

First print of benchy..






Not bad, but not good, either. Making progress but I can see I still have some work to do to.

----------


## AutoWiz

I have printed this 3dbenchy boat a fistful of times across all of my build platforms..



My homemade printer used the black PLA, The geeetech acrylic i3 pro b printed in transparent PLA, and the monoprice select mini printed in grey PLA. The monoprice for $200 and printing within 20 minutes of opening the box is by far the best printing machine of the 3. I mean look at this boat..






The 3 prints in black are from me trying different extruder temps and feedrates but sadly to no avail. One noticeable difference between the monoprice and the other 2 printers is cooling. I now feel I need to setup a cooling fan blowing on filament on the 2 printers with mk8 extruders and retest.

----------


## AutoWiz

It pains me to share this here. This is just one of those things that hurts a man's pride. As soon as I saw it I stopped the video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHjyk6FqYN8

----------


## AutoWiz

I have all the parts I need and an idea of what i'm trying to accomplish. Here is my next project..



I want to setup auto bed leveling / height adjustment and for that to happen the glass has to go in favor of aluminum. And I want to setup a cooling solution for the mk8 extruder to blow air on the filament as it leaves the nozzle. I think this is the big difference in print quality between the monoprice mini and the other printers. It is because of this belief that I think I am going to convert back to the single e3d v6 hotend and maybe I might take the hotend off the mk8 and use it's direct drive extruder instead of the wade extruders.

----------


## AutoWiz

I have decided to apply this to the worst performing printer first so I still have 2 working machines to aid in this effort. The aluminum plate looks good on my home made machine..



I have decided for the time to stay with the mk8 extruder at least until it is printing as good as the geeetech i3. So I have the monoprice mini printing out a simple mount that will attach to the nema17 stepper motor and hold the sensor..

----------


## AutoWiz

I resolved the problem I was having with extrusion on the new mk8 extruder. There was no adjustment for spring pressure like on my geeetech printer and the spring that is in it isn't strong enough so in the end this is the "mod" that got my home made printer up and going decently..

----------


## AutoWiz

I needed a 300x200 print bed for a specific project which I can now take. A while ago I put a double din android head unit in my car that is only meant for a 1.5 din radio. I made it fit but it is less than pretty..



So I made a few pieces trying to get something that will fit and hide the ugly. The printer is doing real good and the aluminum bed is sweet. Here are the first few bezels I made..




Once I had the basic shap and size right I switched to the black and rounded the edges and junk and printed this..



And while it is not exactly attractive itself it does look better than what it was before..



I will probably remake this piece a bunch more until I get it even better but that black bezel was 230mm wide.

----------


## AutoWiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6N1OuZ_Gwc

----------


## OutcastZeroOne

Very nice project. I find it kind of funny that you mention doing a double din radio in an older corvette with the 1.5din opening. I just did the same thing a few weeks ago and just lots of fileing and fitting, though your car is in much better shape then the one I had to work on  :Stick Out Tongue:

----------


## AutoWiz

I enjoy my new path to making parts. Didn't always used to be that way. My carputer project was a great example of how I used to have to build before I discovered 3d printing: 

http://www.mp3car.com/forum/general/...al-time-tuning

----------


## ralphzoontjens

Coming back to the topic of a 3 color mixing printer, check this out:
https://ultimaker.com/en/blog/49783-...0|%20Ultimaker

In the future, Cura will implement functionality for creating full-color prints made with halftoning.

----------


## AutoWiz

yay! so I wasn't retarded. Just ahead of my time. Hopefully by the time that comes to the mainstream we will have better mixing extruders.

----------


## AutoWiz

So here we are almost a year after the tragic failure of my multicolor printer project. And I just want to say that this machine has evolved into a great machine. I am happy with the end result of this machine. But looking back I now understand the problems I was having. I was struggling with and didn't understand a heat creep issue. The fan that came with the ebay diamond hotend was way insufficient and after a short time of printing the filaments that were not in use the longest were melting in the cold end. Sadly it is too late for printilicious to go back to a 3 color printer. But I might try making a new machine now that I know it was a simple problem I was choking on last year.

----------


## curious aardvark

'evolved' is the right word ! 
Half expect it to get bored,  sprout arms and legs and go look for stuff to print :-) 

The main problem i see with the bezels, seems to be that you print with the part on display the 'rough' top, if you printed them the other way up then the bit on display should be the smooth 'bottom'. 

Failing that some fine sand paper anda little black spray paint would also do the job :-)

did you ever give your mate the one you made from scratch ? If so, has he used it ?

----------


## AutoWiz

My mate lost interest in the printer and  the idea of learning 3d design software and slicing software. And just before completion with only the belts left to setup I posted it up on offer up and let go for $100. I sold it for $80. It will be a good machine, but it should not be made to print fast.

----------


## AutoWiz

This home made printer has seen so many different configurations and extruders. I have been happy with the titan extruder I have but the hotend isn't even a v6. It is a v5 and the fan failed and I replaced it and ever since I have struggled with a heat creep issue causing filament clogs. I finally resolved this issue in a splendid if not ugly way..This is now probably the coolest running heatsink in town. But it is also too tall with the heatsink mounted in between the extruder and the hotend. It sticks down a little ways below the gantry and I know this is causing me to loose potential build height. So I need to switch the extruder one more time. I have struck out finding a mount for a titan aero and a prusa i3 that I like or feel is going to work appropriately for me so I ordered this off of ebay..And I can setup the Titan Aero with the same layer fan that I applied to my Black Widow..


This conversion is pricey because I had to buy the whole assembly to get the all metal gantry / titan aero mount, but then discard the garbage knockoff titan aero extruder and swap in all genuine e3d parts. Also I am running an e3d high precision ceramic heater cartridge just for best results. None of these upgrades are motivated one way or the other by money and all are in an effort for the best end result.

----------


## curious aardvark

that's a serious chunk of extruder ! 
what's it weigh ?

----------


## AutoWiz

A metric ton. I should have caught on when I had to take out a loan to cover shipping costs. lol. But it is ok. This printer's frame is very sturdy. And it is going in with fiberglass reinforced gt2 belts. What is important here is that the nozzle is on plane with the bottom of the gantry And I can almost set that directly on the bed as my home. Then I can raise it to the top of the frame and enjoy the largest possible build volume.

----------


## AutoWiz

To make things match I re printed the layer fan in silver. Also the flag and proximity sensor mount I designed I printed in silver to match the extruder. I am happy with my results. Here is my new extruder setup..



I mounted the Z sensor on the backside of the extruder. There is great intelligence in this choice as I have observed circumstances where the extruder is mounted in between the rails that hold it and the Z sensor. When homed with a cold hotend and a piece of filament hanging off, the extruder becomes a see saw that rocks the sensor up and away from the bed even as the extruder crashes into the build plate. With this new configuration if anything hanging off of or even if the nozzle itself touches the bed, it will force the z sensor down and towards the bed..



Here is the flag I had to make for the optical end stop on X..



To make everything match I tossed the green layer fan and reprinted it in silver..



And here is the money shot. This right here is why this is the extruder setup I am going with on all my printers..

----------


## AutoWiz

Today I have all of my machines back together and have got the printers calibrated enough to start with the test prints. I never wanted a 3d printer to print out busts or trinkets or figurines or stuff, For me it was always just another way to make a part. So I am not going to demonstrate what my printers can do with a test print from maker's muse or anything like that. For me the test print is going to be this airframe that comes with incredibly detailed build instructions:  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1831295 To make things interesting for me I am running this test side by side with my other 2 printers. So I will have 3 different color airframes when I am done. Here ismy workbench with all 3 machines working on their own airframes..

----------


## AutoWiz

I am very pleased with how well these machines are printing now..There is a salmon skin thing I will try to address and I also want to learn more about calibrations such as linear advance and I am sure my prints will get even better as time goes on..

----------


## AutoWiz

Ok so the first piece has finished printing on this machine. I just wanted to show as best I can how these machines are printing. The salmon skin / visible artifacts on the surface of the print does not appear to affect the structural integrity or accuracy of the print, so it is a back burner issue to me for the moment as I just try to check the reliability of my machines. Here are a few pictures of the EDF housing..

----------


## AutoWiz

My home made printer, Printalicious, is elbow deep in printing the cover for the EDF motor. It is a quick print if not just because everything is just one layer thick..

----------


## AutoWiz

So as my Air Force takes shape i just  want to point out that these 3 planes were built by radically different machines, technically speaking. One was an expensive printer(Tevo Black Widow W/BLtouch), One was a cheap ebay printer(GEEETech i3 pro B), and one was built from scratch home made(Printalicious). As we all marvel at how such different machines can print the exact same, I just want to say that what we all should care about are the parts used, not a brand name..

----------


## curious aardvark

so have you got all the radio control electronics ? 

Although it occurs to me (who is old enough to have plaued with one) that this would be ideal for one of the old style 'planes on a string'. 
You controlled height and speed with just a throttle, which would be easy to rig via  a wire.  
Tethered they call them. 
Haven't seen one for sale for about 40 years. But they were fun. 
Kind of made you dizzy - but still fun. 

I'm currently talking myself into getting one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/High-Prec....c100005.m1851
?80 delivered. 
Looks like a decent frame and I don't currently have an i3.
I figure a bit of moving around and I can find somewhere for it to live. 

Just intrigued at:
1) how cheap these things are being sold
2) how good they can be
3) the whole i3 seystem :-)

Given it's almost exactly half the price of the monoprice mini delta, I can more easily justify getting one lol
Plus some of the listings I've seen have autolevel firmware and - presumably - hardware.  Same price, just a slightly different listing.
Although, weirdly the autolevel listings only show up on my win7 workshop computer, not this old xp machine. Bizarre.  

How much cheaper can these get ? 
It is ctc who seem to be making these. So not expecting brilliant quality control :-)

Just fascinated to see what an ?80 3d printer will do. Plus it's a larger print area x&y, than any of my current machines and I can use that.

Got no dosh and a lot of bills this month. But I can buy this with change from my jars of shrapnel coinage. 
Ain't that a kick :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

That is identical to my GEEETech acrylic i3. I paid $220 for mine back in 2016. I am constantly amazed at how cheap these machines and their parts are becoming. The industry wants to be mainstream so bad. But the reliability is still way too low for 3d printers to become the new microwave oven seen in every home. But I will bet you if you are experienced, patient, good with your hands, and you know how to calibrate you can make that $80 machine print like the best of them.    As for the aircraft I have every intention of outfitting all 3 with separate electronics and the larger 4s motor that the instructions promise me will make this PLA move at 125+ mph. I am buying electronics where they are cheap, of course. https://hobbyking.com/

----------


## curious aardvark

lol you want it to go faster ? 
My one concern when i watched the video was how fast the thing went. 
half a second and it's out of radio range. Also how do you land it ? 

That ctc i3 actually has a metal frame (it says) not acrylic. You can get the anet a8 for same price, but they only seem to have top and bottom to their frame in acrylic. Not a full metal back frame. 
right Off to sort some coins into bags :-)

ps. it's the ?125 deltas with auto level and 32 bit controller boards. 
Was tempted, but I think I'll go i3 and cheaper :-)

First thing it'll need is a print area cooling setup.

----------


## AutoWiz

all electronics are ordered. I got 6 channel recievers with telemetry, 8 channel radios with the fhss and also with telemetry. I got graphene lipo batteries, and 50mm 11 blade ducted fans with 4200kv brushless motors. and 70a ESC. As soon as the 3mm carbon rods arrive i can start glueing the airframes together and things will really start to take shape. 

I never liked the deltas because of the small relative build area that tapers as you get near the top. I just rather build in a cube. I shy off of the core XY because of all the belts and pulleys. It just looks like a fun time trying to keep things tight. But to be fair, i have never had anything but a cartesian printer. So in truth i am ill experienced to be making them assesments.

----------


## AutoWiz

Just a few sections of wings left to print. I am almost done making parts for this effort..

----------


## curious aardvark

belts are a doddle to keep taut. just use belt tensioners :-) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazingdeal...belt+tensioner
They insure that all belts are the same tension all the time. 
I have 2 on each of the delta's belts and I'll use them on the i3 as well. 
Delta's don't taper at the top - where'd you get that ? 

Only machine I can remember that did that was the little plastic cube micro things that came out a couple years back. 
Where deltas rule among fdm is in speed and lack of vibration.  
And small footprint for volume of print. 
And easier to build. 
lol

Planes are looking pretty cool :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

So as the extruder on the delta moves around on the X and Y the 3 arms that hold it move up or down. So the closer you get to the top of the frame the less travel there is for the rods to go up and ultimately the less movement you get on the X and Y progressively the closer you get to the top of the frame. So deltas will build in a cylinder for like half of their build height, and then the top half of the build envelope is a cone. And the wider the circle of the delta just means the longer those arms need to be and the further up and down they need to move to traverse the larger circle when scootin across the x and y. I feel like that was a sacrifice made for just being different. Which is my turn off to it. I really do like the idea of a better controller with a more powerful processor like the smoothie stuff has, but I just can't get over what I perceive to be an engineering or design oversight. Out of the 3 designs, cartesian, core XY, and delta this is solely a delta problem. Everything else builds in a cube. And you can extend any one axis as you see fit and you don't have to go way up just to go out like you do with trying to build a large print area delta.

----------


## kamylkut

Problem: My blues are turning purple.

----------


## AutoWiz

> Problem: My blues are turning purple.


I don't understand what that means. But take a look at this assembly line..

----------


## AutoWiz

So I am almost ready to start stuffing the electronics in this airframe..

----------


## AutoWiz

The last piece is almost done printing out..

----------


## curious aardvark

very cool. :-)
How big are they ? 

But with deltas you just print to the height where it's the top of the cylinder. never heard of anyone doing the cone thing.

----------


## AutoWiz

Here is a good size comparison. I am 6'1"..

----------


## curious aardvark

wow - bigger than i thought. 
so how much thrust do the little motors have ? 
And what do the batteries cost ? 

oh yeah just ordered a 220x220mm sheet of pei from china. 
under ?5.
did think about printbite - but that's not doing it on the cheap :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

the 50mm edf with the 4s battery should produce 770-790g of thrust. And the batteries were cheap. I got 4s graphene lipo batteries for ~$20 each. From right here: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/graphene...ah-4s-75c.html

----------


## curious aardvark

cool - just ordered printer that look remarkably like this one of yours: 


any chance you could post or send me the file for your print cooling duct thing. Already got a spare turbo fan and I can see two dedicated fan sockets on the board :-)

So what will the planes weigh ? 
Ie: what's the thrust to weight ratio ?

And what are you glueing them together with ?

----------


## AutoWiz

using cyanoacrylate instant glue. it seems to be working well with the PLA. Not sure abut the weight just yet. But i am getting there and will post up those specs. Also there are specific points where i need the make the plane balanced. The motor and battery setup I am using is supposed to be good for 780-790g of thrust. 

And the incredible titan aero fan duct I am now using on all of my machines I downloaded from right here:  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2941191

----------


## AutoWiz

Wow. It has been a while since I updated this thread. Well I still use this printer regularly. I have updated the firmware on my machine to marlin 1.9 and I have updated the firmware in the touchscreen and I am using Prusa Slicer 2.0 which as I understand it is the latest version of slic3r. Printalicious looks awesome with the new build surface..And the new project of the day is this model LS3 engine I am printing out. This printer is making my exhaust headers out of silk gold PLA..

----------


## curious aardvark

now that's pretty :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

I don't f*cking believe I found this wiki: https://www.reprap.org/wiki/Repetier_Color_Mixing  With the sensitive knowledge that all the problems I struggled with at the beginning of this thread WAS heat creep. A problem I completely missed the boat on at the time. As anybody can go back through this thread and plainly see. So now I am seroisly considering turning printalicious back into what it was always meant to be. A 3 color mixing printer. What do you think group??

----------


## AutoWiz

I am rebuilding my Black Widow with the 5 filament Prusa multi material upgrade 2S. I am going to also take Printalicious here back to it's early days and mount 3 extruders to the top of the frame. Like it used to be. Like this..But I will use titan extruders as I have enjoyed great success with them and I really like the 3:1 gear reduction they offer. I am going after color printing in 2 forms. One with prusa mmu2s and one with the diamond hotend and the potential for color mixing. I will also upgrade printalicious to the new SKR 1.3 as this moves forward.

----------


## AutoWiz

BUMP! It has been a while and I am done reworking my other 2 printers. I used to have 4 machines, but my monoprice mini v1 started acting up and I jumped on the chance to throw it away. This machine has been the workhorse that created all the parts for both of my other printers here: https://3dprintboard.com/showthread....-250mm-X-300mm . And here: https://3dprintboard.com/showthread....3-32bit-Rework . So now that my other 2 machines are up and running, it is time I brought this machine up to date. I will have a hand me down skr 1.4 turbo mainboard for this along with a tft35 v3.0 and also a magnetic flexible bed a clone from a mk3s printer. nice big 250x250 or so plate. In fact the specific bed I am applying to Printalicious is here: https://www.biqu.equipment/collectio...sa-i3-mk3-mk3s . And along with the 32 bit mainboard this machine will receive tmc2209 drivers that will run in uart. The parts have already been ordered, I have plenty of black PETG filament and 2 printers to make parts with. So let's get back to the fun part of life and start Reworking this Printer!

----------


## AutoWiz

Oh Happy Day. So I am pretty sure i have hurt one of my 2 SKR 1.4 Turbo mainboards. In The Geeetech i3 pro b I now call 'Old Blue' I have mistakenly connected the part cooling fan reverse polarity. And as I was printing and the fan didn't come on I decided to let the print continue. The fan got warm without the blade ever turning and I smelled something electrical burning but the print was coming out good, so I let it go. Now I have connected a new fan and wired it right but the fan port is now constantly providing 24v power. So when the new BTT 002 mainboard arrives for 'Big Red' instead of that SKR 1.4 Turbo mainboard going into Printalicious it will now go to Old Blue so that board can go in the trash. I am actually happy for this development because it means that I need to source a board for Printalicious. The SKR 1.3 and 1.4 boards use a cortex m3 LCP1768 chip that runs at 100mhz and the 1.4 Turbo uses an LCP 1769 chip that runs at 120mhz. In contrast the BTT 002 board I have coming for Big Red has a cortex m4 STM32F407VGT6 cpu that runs at 168mhz. To help facilitate my dream of rebuilding the 3 color mixing printer I have ordered this mainboard for Printalicious: https://www.biqu.equipment/collectio...-control-board

----------


## AutoWiz

I hope and pray that everybody is safe and healthy during this pandemic. Being on lockdown sure is a great time to spend time with our hobbies like 3d printing. And reworking 3d printers. I have been busy with reworking this printer and I have drawn up this part to house the wiring for the extruder and mount the proximity switch..

----------


## AutoWiz

The part is a perfect fit. It kinda sucks that i am out of black petg so i might reprint it at some point but for now here is that part printed out and installed..

----------


## AutoWiz

So with the smooth rods the way I am getting better precision is by locking the rods down better than the hole through the wood or acrylic that gets loos and lets the rods themselves have freeplay. The way I am fighting this on my reworks is by making pieces that are a tight fit on the smooth rods have a bit of thickness to them and screw down to multiple points on the frame. Here is one of the Z rod braces I made for the top of the frame..  And here is the lower..  And all 4 together.. This will limit or prevent any type of Z banding issues from happening. And for a control solution I am using an SKR Pro 1.1 with an MKS external mosfet to drive the bed and a BIQU mosfet to drive the extruder. The Power supply is 24v 500watts..

----------


## AutoWiz

I have been working on this printer a little and have made some progress on this rework. I have made a new mount for the Y motor, printed 2 of them, and installed 2 Y motors. So now Printalicious will have 2 Z and 2 Y motors. It will only be missing the second X motor to match my Black Widow's most recent rework. The 2 motors together adds a lot of torque but also precision because the carriage is always being pulled from the shorter side of the belt no matter the direction it travels..  I have installed a SKR Pro 1.1 mainboard along with 2 external mosfets. The one on the left with the big heatsink is for the heated bed and the one on the right with the smaller heatsink is for the extruder. This will help the whole mainboard run cooler on long prints and also it is also a setup for me to maybe switch back to that big diamond hotend.. I hunted down all new stepper motor harnesses and all the right connectors and even got all the wires color coded correctly. I do NOT build rat's nests..   I just wish my clone MK3S magnetic spring steel heated bed assembly, TMC2209 drivers, and tft35 v3.0 would hurry up and get here already. I still have to draw up and print a whole front plate for this printer to house that touchscreen and also the buck LM2596 step down converter that is driving the noctua 12v fan and also the smaller 12v lights..

----------


## curious aardvark

But can it print a working iris box :-)

lol

On another note - do you have a config file for a skr 1.4 turbo and marlin 2.1 (or 2.05 can't remember) for that style prusa machine ? Preferably with the touchscreen already setup :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

Ya but I don't know how to share that here. And they will likely be off for what you need as all of my machines are so heavily modified. But there is nothing needed to be done for the tft touchscreens. They need power, ground, rx and tx connections and they just work.

----------


## AutoWiz

I just want to say that this pandemic sucks. I want to buy a few Hemeras from E3D for Big Red and Old Blue and then I can have 3 titan aero extruders to print a regular titan cover and convert to Bowden and I will be all set to rebuild the 3 color mixing printer! But dammit. No Hemeras during the pandemic. Angst!!!!!

----------


## AutoWiz

Well I did it. I ordered a new diamond hotend. There are 5 filament diamond hotends out now. I only ordered the same that I used to have. 3 filament. But if I stick it this time, I might very well upgrade to the 5 filament diamond hotend. Even though that might mean acquiring 2 more titan extruders after buying 2 hemera extruders.

----------


## curious aardvark

so when do you build the new extension to the house for the growing and evolving machines ?

----------


## AutoWiz

That is another part of why I keep reworking my machines. I do not have the space in my life to build a printer farm. I used to have 4 and threw away the monoprice mini so I only have 3 machines. And it will stay that way until I find more space in my life. My current goal is to have 2 multi material machines and one good old fashioned single filament printer. This should keep my hobby relevant for a little while longer.

----------


## AutoWiz

Ok so here is the guideline for rebuilding the Diamond Hotend: https://reprap.org/wiki/Diamond_Hotend . This clearly shows the problem I was having. This says I need a fan that is gonna move at least 18.3 cfm to cool them 3 cold ends. I promise I did not have that on my last build. Rebuilding this extruder is not really expensive but to do it right we need some different parts. So the actual Diamond hotend assembly can be had for under $15. From Ebay, or Amazon, or Biqu's website or Ali express or wherever you like. The one I got comes with 3 v6 coldends.  Aside from this I have also ordered 3 Micro Swiss V6 all metal plated heatbreaks. The ones that come in the diamond hotend have ptfe liners and are really good for low temp PLA. I am done with PLA and PETG is the lowest temp I will go for a filament moving forward. Each of those heatbreaks cost $16 and the diamond hotend was 15. So I am out $63. And I am printing out an i3/reprap mount for it so that doesn't cost me anything and I might spend up to $20 on a good fan that can move enough airflow. So all in it will be or look like I spent under a cnote to set this up, but it does require 3 extruders and I will be employing 3 genuine E3D titan aeros I will print standard titan faces for to convert. I have these but if we were to include them in the price of the setup we can better understand why more don't chase this. I can't wait to get my parts. It is hard to believe how this isn't going to work out in my favor at this point.

----------


## AutoWiz

...And I'm gonna use the clear PTFE tubing like I did before. You know like in this picture from years ago where we can see the filament passing through the PTFE..

----------


## AutoWiz

Oh yes. I got parts! Well, not all parts. Like I am still waiting for an SKR pro 1.1 mainboard, a BTT 002 mainboard, 5 tmc2209 stepper drivers, a tft35 v3.0, and a MK3S clone magnetic steel heat bed assembly. I have been waiting for these items since March, now. I ordered these items directly from Biqu.Equipment and hopefully one day they will arrive. But for now the Diamond hotend has arrived. It comes with the nozzle, 3 V6 heatsinks, 3 v6 ptfe lined heatbreaks, a 6x20mm heater cartridge that is too tall for the 15mm deep hole it goes in a thermistor and a thermal blanket. I am printing the mount and fan duct and stuff for it out of PETG. I also received the 3 Micro Swiss all metal v6 heatbreaks. IMHO ptfe does not belong inside of heatbreaks. But that is just my opinion. So here is the two heatbreaks side by side. What came with the Diamond hotend and the all metal Micro Swiss parts..  Tonight I am ordering the correct size heater cartridge. 6x15mm. And also a genuine E3D thermistor cartridge.

----------


## AutoWiz

So the last time around I used the greg wade extruders because I liked the big printed gears and also because I liked the idea of gear reduction. Over time we have all learned that 10:1 gear reduction might be a bit much and perhaps 3:1 is a better target to shoot for. So this time around I am using a trio of Titan extruders. generic to save $$$ and I am hoping for the best.  Printalicious is already back to looking like it's original self..  I also drilled the temp sensor hole in the diamond hotend to 3mm so I can run a genuine E3D thermistor cartridge. I REALLY wish my parts would arrive from China. Oh how I wish we could all just go back to getting along.

----------


## AutoWiz

I have found the fan mount and cooling fan duct I am going to use and wanted to give a shoutout to the creator and Thingiverse where I freely downloaded this awesome mount for the V6 Diamond Hotend: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3175081/files . However I am going to share some of the pictures of the extruders initial assembly over in my 32 bit rework thread to show how that rework turned out.

----------


## AutoWiz

Oh man. This is gonna be great. I had to make or rather modify a random Geeetech i3 X carriage design I found on thingiverse to receive the Diamond Hotend fan shroud and cooling fan duct i also found on thingiverse. Everything has come out fantastic so far. I mean just look..

----------


## AutoWiz

Well finally i got the parts i ordered back in March. Now we can move forward with this project. So in the mail today i got the TFT35 V3.0 dual mode touchscreen, i got the 6 TMC2209 UART stepper drivers, and I got the clone MK52 magnetic springsteel heated bed assembly for PRUSA MK3. It is a small build plate but i am happy to have my first experience with a magnetic removeable bed..

----------


## AutoWiz

The mainboard is all setup and ready to go. 6 TMC2209 drivers all configured for UART. There are 2 stepper cable plugs on the mainboard for the dual Z motors and there is a splitter hiding at the rear of the frame for the dual Y motors. So despite 5 stepper motors controlling movement on this machine only 3 stepper drivers are working the motion. The other 3 are for E0, E1, and E2. That's 8 stepper motors and 8 stepper motor cables all under a moving bed and here is how all that came out..

----------


## AutoWiz

I am getting close to completion on this machine now. When i am done i will upload all the files i made for this to thingiverse and share with all as i did with the other 2. But that is later. Right now 'Old Blue' has finished making the voltage display and light bar power switch mount.. 
 
It took 7 hrs to print that part and it printed with a lot of support material. I sliced it with S3D and printed it with PETG at 250c with no cooling fan. After removing all the support material I mounted the lm2596 step down converter with voltage display and the led light bar power switch and installed the assembly on Printalicious. Once i got everything wired up i plugged in the printer and powered it on for the first time since this rework started and i couldn't be happier with what i got so far.. 
 
Now I gotta make a mount for the touchscreen with the same dimensions to mount to the other side of the robot and all 3 printers will have a near identical UI setup..

----------


## AutoWiz

The rest of the front panel is designed, printed, and installed. The extruder is back in it's place and we are coming together. I have some final wiring to do then I have to make a mount for the 3 spools of filament and get marlin setup for this thing. We are almost there..

----------


## AutoWiz

I love these dual mode displays. I remember the crowd and not so long ago that discovered and bought the TFT but had to keep the LCD12864 screen. Always the excuse about babystepping the z offset or something along them lines if i remember correctly. Well these screens have to be wired both ways. That is the 5 pin tft harnes that has =5v, gnd, reset, rx, and tx and also the 2 ribbons that connect the exp1 and exp2 connectors on the mainboard. But once its all together we push in and hold the knob down for 3 seconds and it brings up a menu to let me choose which display mode I want to use. I have my base calibration of marlin 2.0.5.3 loaded in and here is my display in LCD12864 mode..

----------


## AutoWiz

And so this completes all 3 32 bit printer reworks. I now have 2 custom multi material printers. After I am done cleaning my workspace from all the hardware and tools and stuff and put away the soldering station I will turn my focus to understanding how to use S3D with the MMU2S and the Diamond hotend. And then once my machines are printing with multiple materials I will turn my focus to trying to understand how to make multi material objects. Here is my revived 3 Color Mixing Printer completed..

----------


## curious aardvark

for me, that's the unpleasant part done and the really fun part of designing multi material prints is to come.
I suspect you probably see it the ither way round :-) 

so can actually blend filaments with that setup or just do one at a time ?

----------


## spegelius

Nice. Interested to see how the color mixing works. I tried it on my clone cyclops hotend with varying results, at least some PLAs weren't mixing, but resulted in a more 'toothpaste' type extrusion. Apparently PETG should mix better, but I didn't try ir, the hotend had too much issues and I didn't have anough patience with it...

About slicers: for MMU2S I think PrusaSlicer is probably the easiest to start with since it the multi-material support is written MMU2S in mind. S3D is harder to get working, at least on my setup where I need to use post-processing sw to add the actual tool change gcode after slicing.
For color mizing I don't know any slicer that supports it. For my tests I wrote a short python port-processor to add the mixing ratio commands per layer.
IMG_20200724_103718.jpgIMG_20200724_103727.jpg

Multi-part desings: if you can read OpenSCAD, I designed some multi-part prints that I use when testing my post-processor: https://github.com/spegelius/3DModel...estmodels.scad
Basically the design process involves designin multiple parts and cutting part y from part x when they overlap, making sure the model origins match so that when imported to the slicer the models are in corrent positions. In slicer then just assing models to proper extruders (in S3D this is a kinda PITA to do properly)

----------


## AutoWiz

Ya you seem to know me well at this point. lol. I am so comfortable building because that is all i do all day every day. I am so comfortable here. But we will get it. As for the diamond hotend yes we can mix colors. and there is no backing up one filament before feeding in another. No toolchange at all here. Just start feeding the extruder you want. This is why i had to finish this one before i got too deep into trying to get the MMU2S working. This is easier i think and i will find success here easier. And the MMU2S honestly i will probably get up and going when spegelius gets his MMU2S and shares his gcode with me, lol.

----------


## AutoWiz

> Nice. Interested to see how the color mixing works. I tried it on my clone cyclops hotend with varying results, at least some PLAs weren't mixing, but resulted in a more 'toothpaste' type extrusion. Apparently PETG should mix better, but I didn't try ir, the hotend had too much issues and I didn't have anough patience with it...
> 
> About slicers: for MMU2S I think PrusaSlicer is probably the easiest to start with since it the multi-material support is written MMU2S in mind. S3D is harder to get working, at least on my setup where I need to use post-processing sw to add the actual tool change gcode after slicing.
> For color mizing I don't know any slicer that supports it. For my tests I wrote a short python port-processor to add the mixing ratio commands per layer.


I am not sure how to make them mix. But i understand we must load translucent filaments for the mixing colors. magenta, cyan, and yellow but all translucent. And I saw a place in marlin 2.0.5.3 to enable mixing extruders which i haven't yet. That kinda sucks about the slicers not supporting the mixing but honestly that is ok for now i guess. one at a time is good to start with. I just read all this here and took off in that direction:  https://reprap.org/wiki/Diamond_Hotend

Did you get your MMU2S yet?

----------


## spegelius

Yep, in Marlin 1.9 I had following:


```
#define MIXING_EXTRUDER
#if ENABLED(MIXING_EXTRUDER)
  #define MIXING_STEPPERS 2        // Number of steppers in your mixing extruder
  #define MIXING_VIRTUAL_TOOLS 16  // Use the Virtual Tool method with M163 and M164
  #define DIRECT_MIXING_IN_G1    // Allow ABCDHI mix factors in G1 movement commands
#endif
```

The virtual extruders are kind of a preset mixing values to use. To use the 16 virtual extruders, in start gcode I defined the virtual tools by assigning the mixing ratios for each. The mixing ratios are what I thought would be good, but they can be anything as long as the total value is 1. So when selecting T5 for example, would drive 21% E0 and 79% E1.
https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M163.html


```
; Virtual extruder 0
M163 S0 P1
M163 S1 P0
M164 S0 P1

; Virtual extruder 1
M163 S0 P0
M163 S1 P1
M164 S1 P1

; Virtual extruder 2
M163 S0 P0.5
M163 S1 P0.5
M164 S2 P1

; Virtual extruder 3
M163 S0 P0.07
M163 S1 P0.93
M164 S3 P1

; Virtual extruder 4
M163 S0 P0.14
M163 S1 P0.86
M164 S4 P1

; Virtual extruder 5
M163 S0 P0.21
M163 S1 P0.79
M164 S5 P1

; Virtual extruder 6
M163 S0 P0.28
M163 S1 P0.72
M164 S6 P1

; Virtual extruder 7
M163 S0 P0.35
M163 S1 P0.65
M164 S7 P1

; Virtual extruder 8
M163 S0 P0.42
M163 S1 P0.58
M164 S8 P1

; Virtual extruder 9
M163 S0 P0.49
M163 S1 P0.51
M164 S9 P1

; Virtual extruder 10
M163 S0 P0.57
M163 S1 P0.43
M164 S10 P1

; Virtual extruder 11
M163 S0 P0.64
M163 S1 P0.36
M164 S11 P1

; Virtual extruder 12
M163 S0 P0.71
M163 S1 P0.29
M164 S12 P1

; Virtual extruder 13
M163 S0 P0.78
M163 S1 P0.22
M164 S13 P1

; Virtual extruder 14
M163 S0 P0.85
M163 S1 P0.92
M164 S14 P1

; Virtual extruder 15
M163 S0 P0.92
M163 S1 P0.8
M164 S15 P1
```

But this method gives only 16 gradients. The proper way to get full mixing steps is to use M165 in the gcode file.
So to get a gradient sweep with 2 colors is to add following codes per layer
M165 A0 B100 ; layer 1
M165 A1 B99 ; layer 2
M165 A2 B98 ; layer 3
etc.
(For 3-color mixing, add C: M165 A1 B99 C0)
https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M165.html

Sadly no MMU2S, no info or anything. Might ask about the status, it's been quite more than 3 weeks already...

----------


## AutoWiz

Well Fishpaste! Everything was going great. I didnt get to a finished print yet but i am getting closer. Here are the results of my first 3 attempts.. 
 
 
And then it happened. I decided to shorten the PTFE tubes to reduce friction and before I started playing around with the retraction settings. I shortened the tubes and fed in the first filament all the way with the nozzle hot. I should have let it cool first and fed all three in and then warmed it and fed each one in a little bit at a time. The filament went in and squeezed out the 2 unoccupied heatbreaks past the transition zone and into the cold end. I have my work cut out for me to clear this jam..

----------


## AutoWiz

I slept on it and decided on a careful approach to clearing the jam. One by one I removed each heatsink and placed a piece of a silicone mat blocking airflow to the heatbreak allowing it to heatsoak to the 240c temp of the nozzle.. 
 
Upon teardown I realized there is no thermal paste on them threads on the cold end side. This is important. And I just happen to have the best thermal paste money can buy. Thermal Grizzly kryonaut. So a little of this needs to go on the threads of each heatbreak only on the cold end side..

----------


## spegelius

Alright, progress! So the M163 helped then? Kinda strange that Marlin doesn't properly enforce setting the default mixing ratios...

I might have done the same thing, bit luckily I didn't get a full blockage. The clone cyclops I have is PTFE lined all the way to the block so I guess it wont do that.

----------


## AutoWiz

The diamond hotend came with thermal tubes that accepted PTFE liners but i swapped them out for all metal micro swiss heat bricks so I dont have to worry about printing with the higher temps. That might have worked against me here. lol. I am getting closer. I need to calibrate E steps, and then run the linear advance thing and then retraction settings. Maybe find out how fast the extruder can feed filament and then correct print speeds based off that. BUT i am getting there, and TY again Spegelius..

----------


## spegelius

Yeah, all metal heatbreaks are more prone to jams, but as long as they are kept cool they should work... I've had my share of problems with heatcreep on all-metal hotends and every now and then the problem pops up, mostly with bowden systems. Actually yesterday I had this happening, a red PLA started printing bad on very small details so I added a filament oiler with a dab of olive oil and it the problem went away. The filament had probably sucked some moisture as I there was an occasional popping sound while printing so the proper fix would have been to dry the roll. But filament oiling can help, although it's bit messy and not sure if it weakens the part. According to this at least PLA shouldn't suffer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY7ZrVE8eks.

----------


## AutoWiz

Ya i am back to struggling with jams again. Although no where near the level I was having this problem before. I might need even more cooling. I am printing at 230c which brings up another point. The diamond hotend has a 15mm deep hole in the center at the top for a heater cartridge. It comes with a 20mm cartridge that sticks up a bit and I had to track down a 15mm cartridge which I did. And I have this huge chunk of hotend with a tiny little heater cartridge and yes it climbs in temps quite slowly. It is becoming clear to me that this diamond hotend is just a poor design and even if I get it to work it will be underwhelming in its slow all around performance. I am not giving up on the 3 color mixing. It is just that I have found a newer style of a 3 color mixing hotend and I am curious if it corrects any of the problems of the diamond hotend. The Geeetech 3 in 1 mixing hotend is a little bit more at ~$45 vs the ~$15 I paid for the diamond hotend. It has what looks like a removable nozzle. It holds 3 heater cartridges. And I can't find any reviews on it. But Geeetech is selling a 3 color mixing printer and this is it's extruder. I already ordered this and when it comes I will order 3 high precision 30w heater cartridges and a temp sensor from E3D. I will keep going with the diamond hotend for now but in the longrun I am excited at a faster nozzle warmup time and hopeful that the newer design will be less prone to clogging. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000...E&gclsrc=aw.ds

----------


## AutoWiz

> Yeah, all metal heatbreaks are more prone to jams...


Well I did some research on the max safe working temps of the ptfe tubing and 250-265 isn't bad. Then I found this blue ptfe tubing that can handle up to 300c. I got excited and ordered 2M of it. It is supposed to be reduced friction on the inside and a slightly smaller id also to better control retraction distances. This tubing right here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tough-Tube-...wAAOSwRUJeszwo . I wanted to put the heatbreaks that came with the diamond hotend back in it and run these high temp tubes and continue my push to get this diamond hotend to print in good quality. Sadly I threw away the heatbreaks when i swapped in the all metal micro swiss counterparts. So i'm not going back to ptfe lined heatbreaks without further investment in something i have lost confidence in. I hope the Geeetech part shows up soon.

----------


## AutoWiz

I did get through all the calibration steps and the printer is printing ok for single color prints. Here are the last round of my calibration prints..

----------


## AutoWiz

So despite not having the original heat breaks to put back in the diamond hotend I am still trying to get results out of this all the way up until the new hotend arrives. I already got the high temp(300c) blue ptfe tubing but I am going to wait until I swap the hotend to install the blue ptfe. For now I have upgraded the 60mm fan to an 80mm fan blowing air across them 3 v6 heatsinks. This extruder is getting large..

----------


## AutoWiz

I have another issue with this printer that is the 3 cheap ebay titan extruders. I tried to save some change and it is costing me. Most hobbed gears have a groove or a channel where the filament rides giving the hobbed gear more surface area of the filament to bite on. Here is an example. This is a genuine E3D titan Aero on my Big Red printer.. 
 
Unfortunately what comes on the 3 cheap titan extruders is really just a gear with fine pointed teeth all the way across. This is the 3 titan extruders currently sitting atop this machine.. 
 
These straight teeth bite into the filament in a very small area in comparison and so the just chip off and dig holes in the filament which is and has been frustrating to me. This is what they keep doing to my filament.. 
 
So along with the geeetech 3 in 1 hotend and the blue high temp ptfe I will also be swapping the 3 titan extruders for 3 genuine bondtech extruders ordered from Sweden. This will be a painfully simply conversion and will look much the same when I am done. I will just be feeding filament in a much better manner. So i am back to waiting on a host of parts the extruders are coming express FedEx so maybe they wont take so long. The geeetech 3 in 1 extruder advertises 60mm/s print speeds and I very much mean to test and push that limitation as hard as I can. I want a multi material machine that can print like my single filament machines do.

----------


## AutoWiz

Oh wow that was some fast shipping. Things get to the good old USA from Sweden a lot faster than things from China. Well I am still waiting on the geeetech 3 in 1 mixing hotend before we can get started but check out these extruders..

----------


## AutoWiz

Well the BondTech dual drive extruders are great. absolutely everything I expected them to be. But they did not solve the problem. And honestly I didn't think they would. While they do allow for applying a lot more driving force to the filament the diamond hotend still has a problem with whichever filament doesnt get used for a while binds when it starts getting used. I think the problem lies in the sheer amount of exposed surface area of the hotend vs. the size and location of the heater and the thermistor. I could be wrong, but that is what is driving me away from the Diamond hotend. I am all set to start getting this Geeetech 3-in-1 mixing extruder up and going with the bond tech and the blue ptfe tubes and just have a really awesome machine but don't you know that hotend is taking it's sweet time getting here. So I went and checked on the status of my order and I just wish I could have ordered this too from them Sweden. 2 month shipping time..

----------


## AutoWiz

Well it has been a while and I never got the Geeetech 3 in 1 mixing hotend from Banggood or bangood or w/e. It got lost in the mail. Tracking showed it moving to about half way across my state and it just stopped. I am less than happy with the whole thing but I was trying to flesh out a good multi material printer and so I have ordered this part again. This time from a different source. Also I kidnapped one of the genuine Bondtech BMG extruders for my coreXY build and have replaced it with a $20 knockoff. So I will be able to have a real world side by side comparison of the genuine and knockoff BMG extruders. I already have the extruder and should get the hotend in the next day or two.

----------


## AutoWiz

Oh ya. So the Geeetech built 3-in-1 hotend finally arrived. I am so excited for a newly designed 3 in 1 mixing hotend. The diamond hotend is such a frustration but I am thinking I will have a better go of this guy. And look at the size comparison.. 
 
The Diamond hotend is a big huge chunk of upside down triangle with the nozzle being at the very bottom and a whole lot of surface area exposed and just one little 6x15mm heater cartridge at the top. The new Geeetech hotend has a more traditional nozzle and the heater block has 3 of these 20 watt 6x15mm heater cartridges so I know the temps will be more stable and accurate.. 
 
I have found no mounts or anything for this hotend at all really on thingiverse. And so I will draw up my own mount and I guess it is better that way anyways. It will be a lot more specific to what I am doing. The cool thing is all the drilled and tapped holes on the top of the hotend for mounting..

----------


## AutoWiz

I tried to reach out to Geeetech on Facebook to inquire about purchasing the parts that secure the 3 in 1 mixing hotend to the carriage and not only did they not respond but they also deleted my post. Whatever their reason or position I spent over $40 on their product and was prepared to spend more. I was a customer and this was a bad experience for me in the name of customer service. Bad form Geeetech. And so I drew up my own mount for the mixing hotend trying to keep everything as compact as possible.. 
 
My design puts a 40mm fan on either side of the heatsink in a push pull configuration.. 
 
They will be wired together in parallel and set to come on only when the nozzle temp is above 50c.. 
 
On the front face of my mount I have 4 holes and a big flat surface to mount a layer fan, ...when I design that. I like this hotend so much better than the diamond hotend. The nozzle size is 0.4mm and unfortunately that is the only size I have been able to find for it. One of the great downfalls to the diamond hotend is the fixed nozzle that can not be removed or changed. The nozzle on this can come out but 0.4mm is the only size I have been able to find so far. But there is at least hope with this one.. 
 
I just have some light wiring to do and then some calibration stuff and I can get back to trying my hand at multi colored prints..

----------


## AutoWiz

So I have collected the 3 files that I have made to get the Geeetech 3 in 1 mixing hotend up and working in an i3 style printer. the i3 style home built printer i made these parts for uses Geeetech i3 pro B printed parts for the X and Z and so this carriage will fit any i3 style printer with the same spacing between the 2 smooth rods as what is in the Geeetech i3 printers. I still have to design a layer fan but i did leave a place and 4 holes to attach said layer fan when I get it drawn up. And I will add it to this: Geeetech 3 in 1 Mixing Hotend Universal i3 Mount by AutoWiz - Thingiverse

----------


## AutoWiz

Well I am very happy with this new hotend. Not a single filament jam yet!!! I am having other temp related issues. I think we will print with lower than desired commanded printed temps. I just think that is the result of 3 heaters so close to the filament. I am also not happy with the current way I have the 3 heater cartridges wired. I am using an external MOSFET for the extruder heater but I fear the wires running to the 3 heaters are insufficient. Or maybe the large connections I have are sinking a bunch of the heat real close to the heaters. IDK. I just don't feel good about the way I have it wired. So I drew up a 2d block diagram to explain what I am doing. Here is the way it is currently wired. The mainboard is just sending a signal to the external MOSFET which sends power down 1 pair of wires and gets split 2-3" from the heater cartridges and wired parallel.. 
 
This way might look good on paper but it is reliant on the feed wires from the MOSFET to the splice being able to carry the load of 3 heater cartridges and still be thermally protected and very flexible. I also want to do away with the splice altogether. I do not want a big knot close to the heater cartridge that can play heatsink on it's own. This can only play hell with the heater's efficiency and accuracy. And so I have planned a rewire to more evenly distribute the electrical load across both MOSFETs and wire all 3 heaters back to the FETs. I know this will mean 6 thermal wires instead of 2 in my cable running to the extruder but I believe it will be better this way. So here how I mean to rewire.. 
 
To make all this happen in the best way possible I have ordered a new Geeetech 3 in 1 mixing hotend and some new 6x15mm heater cartridges with long wires so I do not have to make any splices near the heater cartridges. I will set these new heaters in with thermal paste and PID autotune the snot out of it when done.

----------


## AutoWiz

This printer is now 5 years old. But,....

 

That's right the latest version of Marlin driving an SKR Pro and a Geeetech 3 in 1 mixing hotend with 3 extruders. As I am wrapping up the last wave of building and modding I am working to put back together and restore the Creation Station. All of my printers in a row on a bench. Up and ready to print. I still have to wire up the TronXY but that wont fit on this bench anyways.. 

 

As I dig through the calibrations and fine tuning I aim to start a thread where we can debate print quality / time / and slicers between my printers and anybody else that will join in. Still trying to think of a good name for such a thread. But I have a little bit of time. I have some PLA+ coming and I do need to do some fine tuning on slicer and firmware settings to get the best possible print quality.

----------


## curious aardvark

How about the 'Reality Thread - What printers can Actually do, away from manufacturers claims and the youtube fantasists'

Good diea, to my knowlege you have never actually done any speed tests on your machines. 

What I was going to ask was: can you take a picture of the inside of your bondtech extruders ? 
Including the drop down gear lever.

I want to see if they're the same as mine and if not - have they done anything to help with flexible filament. 
Mine's a bondtech dual ripoff. So curious to see if bondtech have done anything to stop flexible filament escaping and getting bundled up inside the extruder housing - as happened with mine till i took the epoxy putty to it.

Damn shame we're in different countries. 
We could have a business where you built machines and I actually put them to maximum capability use :-)

So with a 3 nozzle mixer, are you still using stls and three different files - or have you found a way to use just one amf file ? 
I know amf files carry a lot more information and should be able to have all the info for the three different extruders in a single file. 
But no clue how that works and which slicers can handle it properly.

----------


## curious aardvark

your workbench is way way too tidy ! 
This is what a real world 'workstation' looks like ;-)
my workstation (Medium).jpg

And if you're wondering where the computer is, it's hiding behind the monitor:
my computer (Small).jpg

It really needs a lid as rain occasionally comes through the windows. 
I could put it in a 'proper' case, I could make  aproper case, But this works - so why change it lol

The three centre machines are currently 100% fit and running.

I'd show you the other half of the workshop - but I suspect you're already hyperventilating, so I'll spare you the possibility of  a heart attack.
Suffice to say, you've seen the tidy half :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

I can't see your attachments.I like your idea for a thread name. That is what we will use.Countries aside if you have any idea on a business proposition to see us making the cheese for doing something with the 3d printers PLEASE let me know. Oh how I dream of making back some of the money I have thrown into this hobby. And I went cheap when I built my IDEX and instead of buying another Bondtech BMG extruder I took one off my 3 color mixing printer and replaced that with a cheap knockoff thing. I feel so ashamed. But it will make for a good comparison of quality vs. knockoff as I have both in the same rig. This is the specific cheap dual drive extruder I bought..  I don't think I paid more than $20 for that extruder. It has a white plastic drive gear which makes it stand out from the Bondtech extruders. Inside wasn't too bad. There was material supporting the filament path all the way up to the base and top of the dual gears. I have seen others that are worse. This isn't bad..  In the genuine Bondtech BMG extruder we clearly see a higher level of precision in the design and making of this part. Not  only is the filament supported all the way up to the point of contact with the dual drive hobbed gears but there are little plastic lumps that actually take up the recess in the hobbed gear. Can you see it/them?

----------


## curious aardvark

The cheaper extruder looks identical to mine - awful design - for non-stiff filaments, great for everything else.
Where the drive shaft goes smooth to the right of the filament groove, should have been a much larger diametyer to stop the filament jumping the groove and wriggling out. 
It only takes a tiny amount of back pressure to do it as well. 

So if you ever try flexible filament, be bloody carefull, it wiggles out on the right side and then packs into the casing. 
Oh just do what i did and fill the space with epoxy putty. 
Assuming there is something on the fold down gear to fill the voids in the actual bondtech - then, yes that should work much better with flexibles. 

Is the price difference worth more than 5 minutes with some epoxy putty ? 

Pics should work now - recommend opening the work station pic in another tab for full detail and size and full horror lol

And yes saffy is sitting on a fridge, dab radio on the windowsill, that's the little glowing orange window behind the monitor. 

The top mounted filament holders for the klik-n-print, are my own design - there's a lot more going down the back and the whole thing locks into the holes for the original back mounted spool holders. 

Moving the spools up top not only makes it infinitely easier to change filament, but it massively reduces the friction and weight the extruder used to have to pull to get the filament from the back, up and over the casing.

It's mainly used for flexible filament when saffy is busy with other things. 
The delta will do stiff flexibles, but at around 10mm/s - so, no :-)

The mini delta is waiting for me to drill a couple holes on a side strut and put the extruder and bowden tube in the same position that it is on my delta. For both length and bend/angle that's about as optimal as it gets.  




> Oh how I dream of making back some of the money I have thrown into this hobby.


Your original idea was to use the semi-industrial filaments and make car parts that were engine bay friendly - That's still an excellent idea.
Particularly as it includes your particular area of expertise. You know what custom car folk want. 

I still think your best option is to go into the midlevel custom fdm market. 

Buying a 3d printer for a small business is the same as buying a pc. 
If you get it made, you get what you want that will do what is required. 

Given how many small businesses could benefit massively from a 3d printer and very few have them. There is definitely  a market there.

I think I'd go with corexy or cartesian over I3, simply for easier builds and faster more precise output. 

Or a big drelta with a  biqu H2 style lightweight all-in-one extruder/hotend. 
That's a such a simple mechanical design it woud cost half what the equivalent sized i3 would cost. 

Three upright struts. simple top and base. Three linear rails on the struts. carbonfibre rods (cheaper than you think) h2 extruder. 4 stepper motors. 
Power supply and controller board, few screws and fittings and you're good to go. 
Pretty easy to build to any size.
Very small footprint for build volume. 

Done right you could sell them to small businesses very easily.

I think I last levelled alexas bed at least 2 years ago. 

So as long as your bed is flat - you don't need to piss around with bltouch or sensors or any kind of autolevelling.
Throw in simplify3d for maximum user friendliness, and offer setup and a training session, and you're quids in :-)
_(doesn't sound as good if you say: dollars in lol)._

----------

