Any hints as to what’s changing on the next version of the Mini, and when it will be out? After helping the local elementary school get started with theirs, I’m hooked. I’d love to get myself a Taz6 when it comes out, but may end up going with the Mini due to space and cost.
The fourth batch of mini’s codename Gladiola http://devel.lulzbot.com/mini/Gladiola/ appears to be in the works now. It looks to be an incremental upgrade with sightly updated parts in a couple of areas, but no major configuration changes at the moment. I would expect to see that sometime after the Taz 6 ships. My guess, and this is pure conjecture on my part is that you will see the Taz 6 style extruder fan arrangement on the Mini at some point since it really works alot better. With the newer mini rambo boards having the LCD header, you might see an LCD panel on the mini at some point, but again thats just a guess.
HAs anyone experimented with bearing upgrades or other mods on the Mini? I see lots of stuff for the Taz, but not much on the Mini.
My Mini is stock with the exception of a 0.4mm nozzle. I have been using it a lot for over a year. I have yet to find any reason to replace a part or upgrade anything. It produces great prints as is.
The one thing I would like to do is add a left side extrusion cooling fan to help with print quality on some parts. The larger 40mm hot end fan would be nice as well, just because the small squirrel cage fans are unreliable.
The mini runs are shorter, so there is less potential for deflection. I’d design a set of rail mounts or other mods for a mini if I had a mini.
Curious if anyone knows if the TAZ 6 x-carriage will work relatively unmodified for the Mini? I’ve taken a quick look at the files, but it’s hard to tell what goes where and how it’s all assembled. The cooling fan upgrades really look nice as well as the one-screw tool head swap-out feature. Currently the Mini has many cumbersome screws (some of which are in tight hard to reach places or behind other things that need to be removed first). So just from looking the Taz 6 system looks much better to me.
I have my own 40mm fan mod that i just designed today, and i think it will work, but the taz 6 fan mount actually looks better than mine. Two, i’m not sure if the Taz 6 x-carriage assembly will hit the mini limit switches right. And three, since the Taz 6 uses 12mm? rods obviously the bearing holder will need to be modified to fit 8mm mini bearings, but i’m not sure if the distance between the rods is the same on the Mini vs the Taz 6. I would venture a guess that they are not. However i do have a modified Taz 6 bearing holder in solidworks that i changed to fit an 8mm bearing assuming the rods are the same distance apart and everything else would work correctly.
No, the rod spacing and geometry is different. It would be a fairly major rebuild to make it work.