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  1. #11
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    alice was a spam bot :-)

    Bear in mind that you can always stack printers. People tend not to think vertically.

    My mini delta sits on top of my normal sized delta.


    You could make a simple legged shelf (table) and use the vertical space in your office :-)
    some 2x4 a piece of plywood and 8 screws (2 per leg, screwed down through the plywood). job done.
    Last edited by curious aardvark; 03-27-2019 at 12:08 PM.

  2. #12
    Student sdtag's Avatar
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    do you use the mini delta much?
    I was considering one of those but I am also thinking about a standard printer but with 2 extruders.
    I think I could use 2 extruders.
    I'm not too sure about the 2 in 1 out designs, or even the 3 in 1 out. I am thinking about 2 separate hot ends 2 in 2 out e3d v6's spaced 25mm's apart.

  3. #13
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    until the hotend jammed I was using the mini quite alot for small detailed items. Currently waiting on the time and inclination to take it to bits and fix it.

    If you're going to get a dual extruder - and they really aren't s useful as you think - then save up and go for an idex system. Independant Dual Extruders.
    Takes much of the hassle out of it.

    That said I do use my klic-n-print very occasionally for a dual, print. But mostly for having both normal pla and flexible pla available without having to change spools over.
    I have used it for dual colour flexibles, but if i was buying a dual extruder system today - it'd be idex or nothing.

    Never did dual prints on my old flashforge creator. Ended up ttoally removing the right extruder and replacing with plastic model of motor - otherwise the endstop didn't get pressed :-)

    Now this looks interesting: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3297964
    Last edited by curious aardvark; 03-23-2019 at 01:13 PM.

  4. #14
    Student sdtag's Avatar
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    Thanks for the link, that does look intriguing.
    But wow I am surprised at what you said about dual extruders in general, not as useful as I think.
    idex - I did not know that term, thank you, I think that is exactly what I want.
    haha well that is what I thought I wanted before I read your post. haha Now I am thinking about it again. But I do like the printer in the link, thank you for that.
    For a while I was working on a dual extruder effector for my Anycubic linear plus, but then I had second thoughts. I ditched the Trigorilla board and I went with an MKS board running smoothiware about a year ago. I love it, the printer prints great now, no more delta dome. But I think adding dual extruders to a delta is asking for trouble (even with Smoothiware) so that why I am thinking about a 3rd printer now.

  5. #15
    printer is in extra bedroom that is more or less storage and next to my home office, other extra bedroom.. Would not use it as much if it was in the basement or garage..

  6. #16
    Student sdtag's Avatar
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    yeah exactly
    thats why I am resisting my move to the garage.
    plus it is just more comfortable in the house, carpeting, a/c, etc.

  7. #17
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    the thing about fixed side by side dual extruders is this:

    1) Unless PERFECTLY levelled one head will always catch on the print at some point and bugger it up.
    I actually sand off any protuding filament from the nozzle I'm not using for aprint to make sure there's nothing there to catch.

    2) you need a REALLY good purgewall for dual material prints. this is used to collect dribbled filament from the head that's just been used and clean up the head that's about to be used. you end up using a a lot more plastic and almost doubling the print time. I have never managed to get simplify3d to work with dual extrusion.
    I use flashprint, which works fantastically well :-)

    3) calibrating dual printheads is a real pita. The only way I know to do it is with replicator-g, and it doesn't work that well. Fortunately my klic-n-print has so far managed to work without it being done.

    4) 2 or 3 into one systems look good, but bear in mind you have to have the same print temperature for each material. with a proper seperate extruder setup you can have two completely different materials with different print temps. Although mixing things with widely varyong temps is not a good idea, as the hotter one will melt the cooler one.

    So because of all this - you rarely use the dual print option.
    My first printer was a flashforge creator - before flashprint and simplify3d existed, so I was forced to use makerware desktop as a slicer. it works well for dual prints, but is the single most difficult and obstreporous slicer to adjust and setup out there.
    The klic-n-print went largely unused (won it in the first and only 3dprintboard.com competition) - despite being the better printer - for quite some time.
    Now the creator is ill and in limbo until I get the inclination and time to fix her. And I'm now using the knp a lot more, mainly because of how easy flashprint makes it :-)

    So taking all that into account, idex takes all the hassle out of it. essentially you're just dealing with two single extruders, which are (presumably) calibrated seperately.
    Not cheap - but worth the investment.
    If I had the money and deskspace I would get one of these:
    https://technologyoutlet.co.uk/produ...x-2-3d-printer

    If I won the lottery I would get one of these with the hi-temp nozzle option: https://www.lpfrg.com/products/leapfrog-bolt-pro/
    Out of the hundreds of machines I've seen at the tct shows over the last 5 or 6 years, this is still my all time favourite.

  8. #18
    Student sdtag's Avatar
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    wow thank you very much, I was kind of wondering about a lot of things you just said.
    ok I'll shut up now. Going back to the drawing board and rethinking everything.
    Maybe I'll just clean up my mess and be happy with my 2 single extruder printers.

    I actually am pretty happy with both, I was just looking for a new project and had always wondered about dual extruders. I think I'm off of dual extruders now but I might start thinking about a 2 into 1 for the delta.

    The printer on Thingiverse is a bit much for me. I can put together a kit no problem, but I don't think I want to dedicate that kind of time and energy for gathering everything on my own. Not yet anyway.

    And I do ok but there is no way I would spend 8 grand on a printer. This is just a hobby of mine.

    Thank you so much for all your time and energy and insights. You probably saved me a bunch of money and frustration.

  9. #19
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    we aim to please :-)

    I will add that if you're making models that frequently use a lot of supports - then a dual setup is worth a try as you can use one extruder for soluble supports. Which will make removing supposrt much much easier as you just srop them in asink of warm water.

    For role playing models it's ideal. Or for things that just have geometries difficult to print without supports.

    A 2 into one nozzle for a delta is a good place to start.
    bear in mind that with sufficient cooling some pla will print up to 230-240, so it gives you scope for matching whatever the second filament is.
    Last edited by curious aardvark; 03-26-2019 at 10:31 AM.

  10. #20
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    If the 2 into 1 setup is not a mixing hotend, but a hotend and separate joiner part, printing materials with different temperatures is possible, the temperature change just needs to be done during the filament change. I've printed PETG and BVOH without problems. 240C vs 210C. It does take bit of extra time for the nozzle to change the temperature.
    Also for this type of setup to work properly there' needs to slicer support for the purge tower or post process the gcode. Prusa Slic3r and KISSlicer v2 support this, but not sure if they work for all mulr-extruder single-nozzle setups. For my 4-in-1 Prometheus setup I've been wrinting a post-processing tool to generate the purge tower: https://github.com/spegelius/filaswitch. Some prints: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lagel8zv6...-YbiFbRBa?dl=0


    With mixing hotends the temperature differences will cause problems if the temperature difference is big. As curious aardvark mentioned, some materials tolerate higher temps somewhat, but it's probably a good idea to do a proper purge when changing filaments.

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