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I just got an E3D and a cold end setup so I can do dual extruders with the stock hotend and the E3D.

I did all of the changes to the firmware in this thread as well as the newer thread on dual extruders that explains what to change in the pins.h file.
When I switch between extruder 1 and extruder 2 in the repetier host manual control window, the LCD panel beeps rapidly for a tenth of a second or so. I can't extrude or retract either extruder, and the none of the heater cartridges work. The red LEDS on the rambo don't light up. What's wrong? Is there anything else I'm missing?

I did change the EEPROM for the second extruder.

EDIT:

After a little bit of troubleshooting, I narrowed it down to #define NUM_EXTRUDER

If I set it at 1, the extruder works fine and reacts to commands for both extruder 1 and extruder 2 in repetier host.
If I set it to 2, nothing works at all.



I still haven't figured it out. Is anybody else having problems setting 2 extruders in the firmware?

what happens if you swap all components from 2 to 1 (heater,therm,motor)?

Problem solved! (I think)

After switching all of the E2 components (heater, thermistor, motor) to the E1 plug slots, I saw that all of them worked except the thermistor. After a bunch of failed continuity testing I narrowed it down to a white wire. It turns out that all of my problems were caused by a discontinuous thermistor crimp. I bought a ribbon of 40 crimped single female pin wires from amazon and some of them are defective.

Now that I can control both motors and both thermistors it seems to be working fine. It looks like dual extruders are going to work for me! FINALLY!



This might be ambitious, but the rambo board has 6 stepper motor outputs. The rostock uses 3 for movement, one for the extruder, a second for a dual extruder extension, and one extra for a 2nd Z axis stepper for mendel printers that need 2 z axis motors.

Thank you to everyone who helped me out here.

Could we possibly plug a 3rd extruder into that one to use for a triple extruder system? We would have to modify the firmware and pin setup, but other than firmware would anything prevent us from doing this?

I still don't have dual extrusion working, this time because of alignment and calibration problems. My delta platform rotates just a tiny bit when it moves around the build area, and this rotation, even though it's too small to see, is causing the nozzles to get offset from each other as they move around the glass bed. At one end of the bed, the one nozzle is lower than the other. At the other end, they switched and the lower one is now too high. It's a difference of about 1mm over the build area, but that's way too much for printing. I checked to make sure the towers are parallel, and they are, and I checked the arms to make sure they're the same length, and they are.

I've made a few different effector platforms and I rendered my last two iterations. My newest one has both the seemecnc hotend and an E3D hotend on magnetic ball joints. The E3D one is set up with an adapter to input filament from up to three different extruders (not at the same time; it's meant for dual extrusion with retraction, not color mixing).

The adapter that merges the filaments into the hotend works great, but my cold end extruders really suck. Both my steve's extruder and greg's extruder constantly jam and grind and can't do decent retracts. They were just as bad before I had this design but the design won't work decently until get my extruders working right. I need to figure out how to prevent my effector platform from rotating while moving. When I eventually build my own printer, I'll probably go with a cartesian one to avoid all of these geometry complications.

Hey Generic Default,
could you please upload the stl file for the mounting that would be outstanding
Thanks in advance!

Here you go. It's a set of a few stls, so just print them all at once or something. I made mine out of trimmer line nylon with 3mm shells and 30% fill in Cura.

You need some screws around 3 or 4 mm x 20mm

Nice design! May I ask what modeler you used?

Are the honeycomb holes for cooling, weight reduction, or just because they look good?

As for your platform rotation, I wonder if your ball joints are not all at the same height. If one arm of a pair had a smaller vertical drop than its twin, then it would move further in the horizontal plane.

You can check the effector platform by setting it upside down on a flat surface. Check that all six balls contact the surface. I'm not sure what the best way to measure the height of the balls on the carriage. Maybe set a precisely planed brick on the bed and bring the balls down until they touch it.

And then, if that finds the error, you'll have to figure out how to correct it.

I use Solidworks. It's excellent for this kind of stuff, and you can get the full version absolutely free from certain websites...

The hex holes are mostly for routing the wiring through and maybe future attachments like cooling fans and stuff. They're also a lot more rigid than the straight line infill that cura puts in at 30%.

I'll check the effector plate balls to make sure they're level, but this kind of stuff is a lot harder than it looks to fix! I know exactly what the problem is, but I don't know what's causing it.

The method I used on this design to get the two different types of nozzles level works really well. There is a printable nylon spacer nut between the threads and the groove of the seemecnc hotend, and you just tighten the steel nut on top of it to compress the nylon nut a few hundredths of a millimeter to get it perfectly aligned with the E3d nozzle. All of that precision is useless when the whole thing tilts though, so make sure your delta platform is perfect.

I have been following your instructions, as well as loading the firmware supplied in an earlier post, but having no luck with getting the second extruder to work properly. Every time I tell it to extrude, it starts rotating back and forth. I have checked the wiring, and it works when I swap it with my original extruder, so it is not the motor or wiring. What would cause this?

pyrophreek wrote:I have been following your instructions, as well as loading the firmware supplied in an earlier post, but having no luck with getting the second extruder to work properly. Every time I tell it to extrude, it starts rotating back and forth. I have checked the wiring, and it works when I swap it with my original extruder, so it is not the motor or wiring. What would cause this?

I started seeing something a little like this after setting up dual extruders. Basically, the stepper drivers start overheating causing shutdowns/skips. I pointed an 80mm, 12v fan at the slot where the USB cord goes into the RMAX so that air would blow over the back of the RAMBo. That seemed to fix the problem for me (assuming your problem is the same).

I have this feeling that perhaps I had to do something else to get the 2nd extruder to work initially (I recall doing the same kind of testing you've described). But I can't remember what that was Which firmware version are you using? I was on Repetier 0.83.

Rep 0.8 Maybe I need to try the latest.

Any chance I could get a copy of your firmware? Would be nice to start with something I know should work for dual extruders.

I modified the .83 firmware that SeeMeCnc has in the github RostockMAX repository here: https://github.com/seemecnc/RostockMAX. I only needed to modify Configuration.h and Pins.h. I'm attaching both. One thing I just remember when looking through the changes I made is that the default current for the 2nd extruder is 0. I set mine to 225 which is the last number in this line:

#define MOTOR_CURRENT {195,195,195,225,225}

I think that may have been the piece I missed initially.

My hot-ends are dual E3D using the RP-One Labs thermistors (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Modular-Screw-o ... 33873faca2)

They're spaced 25.0mm apart which is why the distances are -1000 and +1000 (Steps/mm = 80, 12.5 mm in each direction).

Thank you, apprreciate it.
Got it installed, and it seems to work alright for everything else, but the motor still does strange things. When I tell it to extrude, it begins spinning backwards and wont stop even if I hit emergency stop. Only way to shut it off is to turn off the power.

Figured it out....The settings in the EEPROM were bad...lol so easy

pyrophreek wrote:Figured it out....The settings in the EEPROM were bad...lol so easy

Could you tell us what settings were bad, this would be a help to future users who are reading this thread and want to implement dual extruders.

Turned out the eeprom settings for the second extruder were blank. Just copied the ones from the first to fix. Will properly calibrate each individually later.

pyrophreek wrote:Turned out the eeprom settings for the second extruder were blank. Just copied the ones from the first to fix. Will properly calibrate each individually later.

Thank you for letting us know this, it will help everyone when their turn comes.

I forgot that I had to do that, too -- thanks for the reminder!

Hello to all.

I have been watching this thread with great interest. I hope to use dual extruders with the second extruder dedicated for printing HIPS support material.

How has progress gone with the setups and configurations described above?

Would it be helpful if I developed my own ideas and added my experiences to this mix, or would I be "re-inventing the wheel"?

Thanks!

Bill

Ive been looking into this as well, im tired of trying to remove the pla support from pla. Would be nice to gave some water soluabale support material. Man just think of the thigs you could do! So wheres some video of the dual extruders in operation??

Bill Havins wrote:Hello to all.

I have been watching this thread with great interest. I hope to use dual extruders with the second extruder dedicated for printing HIPS support material.

How has progress gone with the setups and configurations described above?

Would it be helpful if I developed my own ideas and added my experiences to this mix, or would I be "re-inventing the wheel"?

Thanks!

Bill

From past experience with your writings, I think you would be doing us all a favor by documenting your ideas. I'd like to read about them.

I am planning to post some photos of my setup soon, but I am actually running into an interesting problem, and I was hoping someone might have a solution. I am getting insufficient extrusion from the second extruder, and when I watch carefully, the motor appears to be moving back and forth rather than properly extruding. All of the connections are good, each extruder works fine on its own, but when I try to print with both, it starts to severely underextrude. I have gone through everything, and I even put a fan to cool the RAMB0 as I thought maybe it was a heat issue affecting the stepper drivers.

A teaser of the results I am getting now. Rostock Max with add an ezstruder
stock platform with one printed part for dual extruder attachment

Thanks for the comment, Eaglezsoar. I may not get all of the details exactly right the first time (so much to know!) and appreciate comments from others. We're all still learning about this strange and incredible machine.

Today is the day that I begin serious development. Believe it or not, I am going to design my dual head platform using two "Steve's Extruders." When I ordered my Rostock MAX almost a year ago I ordered the second extruder at the same time; I've got it - I'm going to use it. Anyway, the one I have been using all these months has worked fine.

My Rostock MAX is almost "bone stock" including the all-too-flexible platform arms that cause some people to experience the "Delta Arms Blues." Mine have worked just fine.

Here's where my thoughts have been going. I want a rigid platform to hold both hotends. And, I want both hotends held perpendicular to the build plate. Finally, I want the platform to bolt directly to the Rostock MAX hotend platform. I'm not worried about losing Z height (I don't print basketballs).

Here's a Thingiverse file of the design I printed today (the link includes a photo of both hotends installed): http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:243270.

When you look at the photo you may question if the hotends are touching. Well, yes and no. The contact area is so small that I don't anticipate any more heat loss from the active hotend than what occurs with normal convection. But, I'll trying printing tomorrow and we'll see if the inactive hotend actually "cools" the one in use.

Once I get alignment as close as I can (shimming where needed), and after I get a .5mm nozzle for my second hotend, I'll begin to tweak the electronics to see if I can use both extruders the way I want.

Ugh! This is work!

Bill