Tri Hotend

[bdjohns1]

Would some one minde sharing gcode of 3riple or double extrusion?

It's not a gcode thing - your slicer (and the parts you feed into it) need to be set up. All you do in the gcode is tell it to do a tool change. The slicer should do that.

Most common thing today is to use the 2nd extruder for support material (ie HIPS support with ABS prints).

[0110-m-p]

Would some one minde sharing gcode of 3riple or double extrusion?

It's not a gcode thing - your slicer (and the parts you feed into it) need to be set up. All you do in the gcode is tell it to do a tool change. The slicer should do that.

Most common thing today is to use the 2nd extruder for support material (ie HIPS support with ABS prints).

KISSlicer has a really simple way to change materials/extruders. Just add a printer configuration based on what extruder you are using, what kind of material is loaded into that extruder, and where you want that material to go in the slice. I haven't used it yet, but after seeing how easy it is to configure I'm ready to jump on the multi-extruder train...calibration on the other hand is probably going to be a complete PITA.

Here's a screenshot of the Extruder Materials tab...

[teoman]

Yep.

I was planning on rewriting parts of the repetier firmware to pump out the commands to an auxiliary controller card over I2C.
Just need to figure out what are the commands.

[bdjohns1]

I noticed something is finally listed as in stock.

[Jassper]

Other than support material I have no desire to print rainbow vases. So how long until the software allows you to print specific parts of a print in different colors, or at least allows me to print 4 black checker squares along with 4 yellow checker squares on the same plate

Also, I didn't read the entire thread so maybe this was already addressed, but wouldn't the hotend melt the ABS effector plate?

[Generic Default]

I finally got to the point where I'm selling and ready to ship! I'm sorry for all of the delays. I did most of the design work in the first few months of the year, some basic prototyping, I did limited production on some mini CNC machines from June to August, and the machine shop finished the first big batch in October. Then I took the time to get the parts coated, but there were still a lot of delays after that. But I'm shipping the finished product now, and the performance of the thing is excellent. Future products won't take so long.

Jassper,

I don't care about rainbow vases either. I have never even printed a vase, but I think that using multiple extruders has huge benefits. Support material, multi-color, different materials in the same print, and different nozzle sizes are the big ones. And I think that most of the slicers allow you to print those checkers now, you should look up a video on how to do it. Plus this is the only full-metal hotend that can reliably print PLA without special care (as far as I know). The WS2 coating prevents jams.

I have used printed effector plates for over a year now and I haven't melted any yet. As long as there is at least a little gap between the plate and the heated bed you should be fine. The hot part of the Tri hotend never touches anything, and the titanium thermal isolator prevents almost all of the heat from getting to the heat sink anyway. It's about 3x more efficient than the stainless thermal isolators used on other hotends. ABS and trimmer line nylon should work fine for effector plates. PLA is more risky since it gets soft around 50C.

[pkhzor]

I've been keeping an eye out for this thing for a while now and it's finally released. By the time I'll get around to install it I'm sure someone will have written some sort of a tutorial for it. Hope to see it in the mail soon.

[pkhzor]

It arrived today, it looks awesome and the included instructions are very nicely written too. All in all the hotend looks really good, I've yet to purchase rest of the upgrades I need to make it work but at least it's here. Can't wait to print something with it.
Generic was awesome and included a mount for me, thank you for that man.

[TwinTurboGuy]

I am awaiting delivery of my first 3D Printer (Rostock Max V2) and am already considering upgrades for the build process.

I am highly interested in the Tri-Hotend, as it looks fantastic and seems superior to all others out there.

A couple of questions:

1) Can I buy this hotend and simply just run two of the heads off of the Rambo board until I am ready to upgrade to the smoothieboard, leaving the third vacant?

2) I'm also interested in upgrading the arms on my printer and the magnetic ends seemed attractive. Is there a specific kit I can buy or at least a parts list that plays nicely with the effector that was designed for the Tri-Hotend? I also noticed the TrickLaser arm kit which seems to be well thought out. Would the Tri-Hotend mount nicely with that as well?

The magnetic ends appeal to me so I can swap out a dremel, laser head, etc. while also wanting to reduce weight.

Any additional advice on upgrade parts are also appreciated, though I realize it may be off-topic.

Thanks in advance!

[Generic Default]

Yes, the Tri hotend can run one, two or three hotends during the same print. A lot of prints I do don't need support or more than one color/material, so I find myself doing many of my simpler prints in one type of plastic only (usually trimmer line).

With that being said, you can also input more than three types of filament into the Tri hotend with a little merger device I made, although you will need a board that supports more than three extruder stepper motors for that (6+ total)


I love my magnetic arm setup because it makes the smoothest prints out of anything I've tried so far, but you will not be able to mount a dremel to it without modifications. The magnetic force can only hold a few pounds and the force of the dremel will break the connections. No permanent damage if you have a hotend on it, but a dremel may go spinning around the room if it gets loose!

I have a newer design I've been prototyping that works the same as the magnetic arms but without magnets; it's a lot more rigid and it can't get loose. But it is more expensive and I'm still in the designing and iterating process.



As far as mounting goes, I have designed several mounts specifically for the Rostock Max and they are compatible with stock arms, trick Laser arms, and magnetic arms. If you want a custom mount I'll be more than happy to design and print one for you.

Have fun when you get your Rostock! I was in your same position a year and a half ago. You will learn a lot, and having a machine that makes stuff easily is awesome!

[TwinTurboGuy]

Thanks Generic!

I can do without the dremel setup for the time being. Any pointers you can give me on replicating your magnetic arm setup wold be appreciated. I plan to purchase the tri-hotend from your site as well, as soon as the printer arrives. I ordered from Filabot and apparently it is still a week or two away from fulfillment I am told. :/

I think I found your effector models on Thingiverse or one of the other object sites, I don't recall.

I like the trimmer line idea. Is it substantially cheaper? Is there a particular size, brand, that works best?

I am looking forward to your new and improved arm setup as well.

Thanks again for the tips!

[0110-m-p]

I like the trimmer line idea. Is it substantially cheaper? Is there a particular size, brand, that works best?

This is why I and several others use and yes it is cheaper than any quality ABS/PLA....$22 with free shipping (if you have Amazon Prime) for ~3 lbs.

http://www.amazon.com/Maxpower-333665-R ... B003VPAEL6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[TwinTurboGuy]

I like the trimmer line idea. Is it substantially cheaper? Is there a particular size, brand, that works best?

This is why I and several others use and yes it is cheaper than any quality ABS/PLA....$22 with free shipping (if you have Amazon Prime) for ~3 lbs.

http://www.amazon.com/Maxpower-333665-R ... B003VPAEL6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Excellent, I really appreciate the tip, thanks!

[Generic Default]

Here's a video of assembling part of the hotend for anyone who is interested in how it fits together. There is no sound.

http://youtu.be/MuQFVqocm6Q" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The youtube embedding doesn't work for some reason.

Also, the STL printable parts are on YouMagine here;

https://www.youmagine.com/users/poly-stroooder

One more thing, here is the nozzle offset diagram for this hotend.

[Khalid Khattak]

Informative Video and great Design... Now i just want to see it working with all three nozzles. Thanks for sharing.

[cwilson]

Hi Generic,

I placed an order for the Tri-Hotend this morning, and am looking forward to receiving and installing it on my Max v2. I'm still using the RAMBO board, so I know initially I won't be able to use all three extruders. What board/firmware do you recommend for support of all three on the Rostock Max v2? Any other things to consider in the upgrade path?

[McSlappy]

I've been printing the bits and pieces over the past few days in preparation to swap my stock nozzle to the Tri.

I have a couple of questions:
- Which extruder mounts are you people using? I see tricklaser has a nice one, though shipping to Australia is a bit pricey and I don't even want to wait that long! I'm only planning on running 2 nozzles with the stock rambo. Any decent dual extruder mounts around?
- Double spool holders? Same deal, what are you guys going to use?
- The adapter plate that mounts the tri to the stock effector plate. What holds the hot-end in place? I can push it back out of the mount without too much effort right now.
- Fan shroud. I printed the 30mm after deliberating over 40 vs 30mm. It has holes right through it, is there some cap that attaches to one side?

Getting excited for install

[Generic Default]

If you have the SeeMeCNC rostock effector on, there is a 40mm hole in the middle. The pictures show how the parts fit together; the adapter plate fits in the 40mm hole of the effector plate carriage and then the Tri hotend heat sink slides into that. The star shaped plate on top is only necessary if the fit isn't tight, in which case the plate clamps around the Tri hotend's groove and holds it down to the mounting plate. The 3 or 6 screw holes around the heat sink will fit either M4 (4mm) or #6 screws (imperial) to hold everything together.

I have an older V1 rostock and I made a top mount for my Steves Extruder so I'm running my own custom filament system of cake containers and tubs. I just put them on top of the printer, which probably isn't the best way to do it but it works for now.

The fan screws into the mount, then you can slide it over the heat sink. If you screw the fan to the open side of the mount, you should put it on the heatsink first and then tighten the fan to it so it grips it firmly.


CWilson, I don't want to promote only one board, but there are limited options for multi-extruders right now. Here are several options;


1) The RAMBO board limits you to two extruders and two hotends. It's easy to get started with this though.

2) The Smoothieboard is just like the RAMBO but with different firmware, and you can add an extra stepper driver if you're good at soldering.

3) The RUMBA board supports three hotends and extruders, but I've heard of a few people who had problems with the boards a year or two ago.

4) The Azteeg boards can support up to 5 hotends and extruders. This is the way to go if you want a crazy upgrade capable machine. Unfortunately it doesn't use the newer, faster chips that the smoothieboards use.

I don't want to recommend one and only one since everyone has their own needs. There may be new boards coming out soon (or now) that support more than two hotends, but I'm not an expert on the electronics so much and I don't want to recommend something that ends up disappointing people.

[McSlappy]

Thanks mate! That pic helps a lot

[Generic Default]

A bit of a bump, but here is the latest stuff going on with the Tri hotend. First a few pictures of what it looks like on a Rostock!

I recently decided to start selling the hotend in one or two nozzle kits as well as the full Tri kit (mono and duo kits, respectively). The first two photos are of the hotend mounted on a custom milled aluminum effector plate on the Rostock Max with magnetic arms. Only two of the heater blocks are installed, I was testing the Duo kit with a the older hexagon heater block and a different brand of nozzle. The Tri hotend is compatible with most M6 nozzles. Both of the nozzles in the picture are not coated with WS2; notice how crusty they get after crashing into a print from defective end gcode!

The third picture is of my MIC-6 circular plate with PEI on the Rostock Max. It's flat to within a thousandth across the surface, which gets rid of the uneven print surface problem.

Below are photos of the Duo and Mono hotends. I finally got the logistics down to sell them without confusion. When I started making these last year I was expecting more development of multi-extrusion software, firmware, and hardware. The hardware has been lacking development and most people still don't have the ability to work with more than one or two hotends on their printer; luckily the Tri hotend was designed from the beginning to be modular so you can use one, two or three of the heater blocks and add more when you need them.

I still need to get a good video of this thing printing, I'm just lacking a bit in video equipment and lighting. And free time!

[teoman]

Modern mobile phones are not too bad at taking video if you provide sufficient lighting.

[Heffa]

Hi!
I'm new to this forum and in the process of building my second Delta printer, this time from 30mm, 60°profiles.
Initially I was going to add two hotends to it, but lately I've been thinking why not add three while I'm at it

Anyway, I would love to hear/see some real-life stories about the TriHotend - have anyone actually installed and calibrated it for three hotends?
I would LOVE to hear some about it, or even better see some pictures/videos of it in action.

This thread have been awfully silent the last 6 months or so
Generic Default, do you have any videos you could share? Anyone else?

Regards,
Håkan
Sweden

[Heffa]

I'll try again before deciding if I should order a Tri Hotend, or scrapping the idea and go for a regular dual extruder solution... have anyone actually used this hotend?
Either in single, dual or even triple configuration?

Generic Default - as mentioned by someone else, even a crappy mobile phone video is better that nothing
I'd love to see this thing in action before deciding if I should purchase one.

I can't find any pictures, videos or even texts about it besides from this thread, but my Google-Fu might be too weak.

[cwilson]

I use it on my Max v2. Currently only a single configuration (haven't upgraded to a second/third cold end yet). Has worked well with PLA, ABS and nylon.

[Generic Default]

I'm uploading a video to youtube that I just took of a single nozzle print in PLA at 240C; I'll put it in this post when it's uploaded. I only have two of three nozzles on my Rostock right now.
For now I just have a few more pictures.


Heffa, the reason it's hard to find things about the Tri hotend with google is because most of my customers are job shops and R&D places that do proprietary stuff. I was hoping that I would have been able to link to awesome prints my customers made with the Tri hotend, but very few of them take videos of their printers in action!

Calibrating the nozzles is easy, you just loosen the set screw for each unit and let the nozzle tip contact your build plate, then tighten the set screw again.
Doing all three takes about 1 minute and gets the nozzles to within about 0.02mm.

The job shops mostly need this hotend for reliability and minimizing down time with PLA parts that would jam other hotends. The R&D places do a lot of weird materials at higher temperatures and use two or all three extruders.
If I had more than a few minutes a week of free time I would be working on a professional video of this thing in action.

Notice the PLA ooze artifacts on this game controller; I didn't increase retraction for the high temperature. PLA has almost no viscosity at 240C and above. But it makes ultra strong and rigid parts!

Video should be up by the end of tonight. It's kinda lame and the lighting sucks. I really should hire someone who does advertising and marketing so I can show how cool the Tri hotend is.
[youtube][/youtube]