Taz 3 ability to mid job pause/filliment change?

General LulzBot TAZ
1

Hi,

I am on the verge of purchasing the Taz 3 and am starting to dream of all the wonderful things I am going to print with it. A couple of questions if someone could chime in though. I will make 3 separate threads as they are very different questions:

1 of 3) I am wanting to make a custom holder for all of my ratchet’s sockets at work. It would be a block (lets say red ABS) with a series of blind holes with varying depths and over each hole there would be a raised value stating the size of the socket which I’d like to do in a contrasting color like black.

Can you predictably pause the printer at a certain part of the print and change out the filament to a different color?

Or

Could you print the ‘red block’ as one project, swap the filament once it’s done and start a new print using the top of the red block as the new “bed” to print the lettering?

Thanks!

2

It is possible to pause the printer by inserting a pause command into your G code (usually accompanied by a move the hot nozzle off the part I am making so it doesn’t melt a hole in it while it is stitting there and then move it back where it was command) What you describe is going to be much easier and cleaner to do with a dual extruder setup though. Swapping filliaments you will have an unspecified amount of color mixing that has to occur before the new color starts coming out. On the older buddaschnoszzles at least I find you have to extrude about 30mm worth of plastic before it even notices it has a different color filliament in it.

3

Thanks Piercet, looks like I need to take a look at the G code and see what flexibility there is. I will also look into the dual extruder option.