Dual Ex quality issues

Since I’ve installed a dual extruder onto my printer, I’ve been constantly running into issues with motors skipping steps and generally having poorer quality of prints. I’ve noticed that the added weight makes the print head a lot more wobbly during moves. X-axis belts are as tight as they’ll get, the mounting screw is tight, and I’ve decreased the print speed to little avail.

What are some remedies people have taken if they too have noticed a decrease in print quality after upgrading to a dual extruder? As a side note, I’m thinking that a design with the second extruder mounted on the opposite side of the X-axis rod would be an improvement on the current design which has to resist a fair bit of cantilever torque.

Hi,

Has someone contacted you regarding your issues with dual extruder?
Did you get your tool head from lulzbot, or did you make it yourself?

How fast are you printing? Mind posting one of the Gcode/material files you’re having trouble with?

Build the toolhead myself, following the specs from Lulzbot.

The problem is pretty general across anything I print, and my Makergear with its much smaller head doesn’t seem to have problems with the same settings. Sample Gcode attached.

When I get down to around 30mm/s the quality is acceptable but that’s frankly way too slow for my needs.

I noticed that the stepper motors are running quite hot once the print gets going, it stabilizes around 75C as checked with an IR thermometer, and I wonder if that’s causing an issue. My research showed that this is hot but still within the operating range, but I’m also planning to build an enclosure to solve delamination in larger prints and if I’m having problems now, I’ll have a complete mess on my hands if I raise the ambient temp even higher.
pokeVaseA02.gcode (1.18 MB)