Setup question - new Taz + new Flexydually

I’m receiving my replacement Taz 5 today and received the Flexydually v2 last Thursday. Unfortunately my month old Taz completely died when printing the calibration squares for the Flexydually, so it’s being replaced. I’ve printed almost 1KG of ABS since I received my first Taz, so this was kind of strange and a surprise for it to just die like that.

Should I set up Taz using the single extruder and do initial leveling with that or can I just skip it and mount the Flexydually? Is leveling very difficult with a dually installed? I’d rather not use the single extruder if I don’t need to.

After fiddling with the dual extruder v2 for the last month+, I’d say its safe to mount the flexydually and establish nozzle height. Well, the consideration is that it will be your primary toolhead on the machine. Since putting the dual extruder on, I haven’t gone back to the single extruder.

Here’s how I’d do it:

  • follow the directions to install the dual extruder… specifically there’s a bolt that needs to be replaced on the left side of the machine.
  • Flash the firmware
  • Raise the Z endstop so that the nozzle doesn’t crash into your bed.
  • Level the bed.
  • Move the toolhead to the center of the bed, heat up Tool0.
  • Home the Z, increment Z-enstop… repeat until you can get a business card between the nozzle and bed. Use Tool0 (back extruder) for all actions.
  • Once you can slip the business card through with some resistance, the iniitial nozzle gap should be about right. It may need to be lowered by half a turn of the Z-endstop to get a smooth bottom on the object… but also have atool handy to remove the print.
  • At this point, you can try to level Tool1 or continue to a calibration cube to check out the bottom surface.
  • Let’s do the print the claibration cube… I use the attached 20x20x5mm cube. Cancel print at 1.5mm to check out the bottom for nozzle gap calibration. The bottom should be fairly smooth and just able to make out the individual extrusion lines.
  • Adjust Z as necessary.
  • Level Tool1 so the bottom of the calibration cube looks the same as the one printed on Tool0. On my dual extruder, I can see ~3 threads on the insert. More threads means the nozzle is farther away from the bed… less means nozzle closer to bed.

Last tip, I use the attached calibration ring to check that the bed is level. Again, look at the finish on the bottom of the ring to determine if any corner is lower than the others. I also like to use dial gauges to quantify the distance of each corner… one on either side of the toolhead.

Hope this helps! Post some cool prints with the flexydually… or just post a print. :slight_smile:
-Calib Disc 100x1.5.stl (43.8 KB)
-Calib_20x20x10.v1.stl (25.3 KB)

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately I think I have some sort of defective Flexydually v2. My newly delivered replacement Taz 5 just blew like the first one did when printing the calibration cube. It’s very odd as it completes the abs layer fine, switches to the front toolhead and prints the ninjaflex inside the abs. Then, just as it’s finishing the ninjaflex portion Taz just dies. It blows a fuse in the exact same spot that the first one did. This is very aggravating. It takes a long time to box a taz up, and then set a new one up, go through all of the calibration on the single toolhead, then change to the flexydually and calibrate the bed again, then start to print the calibration cubes and bam. dead. I don’t know what’s going on but I’ve lost a lot of hours so far and my project has been halted several days and now it’s unknown if I can get a replacement quickly as they sold out fast.

Hmm… that’s too bad. The machine just shuts down? Does the power supply shut down?

So I’m trying to think through what happens on a tool change… if extra load causing issues…

Try running the printer in a different room on a different electrical circuit temporarily.

No, the power supply stays on. It blows the little nanofuse that you need tweezers to take out just under the lower large capacitor. I had to order new fuses which will be here tomorrow. Cheap fuses. Very expensive shipping.