I just built the Flexy Dually Extruder for my TAZ4 because I want to be able to print with either ABS or NinjaFlex, and sometimes with both. When I try to print with just ABS (waiting for NinjaFlex to come) the TAZ seems to wait for the Flexystruder to get to temperature, which is set to 0 in Simplify3D. The only way I can make it print is to use the LCD and manually set the Flexystruder temp to match the temp shown on the info screen and sometimes this is difficult since heating 1 extruder causes the other one to heat up a little too… How can I make the printer work with just 1 extruder an ignore the other one?
In Slic3r you can set the second extruder as the support material, and turn support material off. Not sure if Simplify3D supports that or not.
Just tested this in Cura, setting E0 to 180C and E1 to 0C in the Gcode. Print started as soon as E0 hit 180. Have you tried setting all temps to 0 in Simplify and preheating manually?
Thanks guys I’ll try both suggestions, when I get my flexystruder fixed, it’s clogged. I was trying to calibrate the flexystruder and it clogged. Seems I need to turn the filament feed rate (Esteps) way down for Ninjaflex, anyone know an approximate value (it’s currently set at 840)? When I extrude 10mm pause extrude 10mm pause… it works Ok but if I try to extrude anything longer when it stops the drive noticeably reverses after it stops like the filament is pushing back. I tried extruding then retracting and it clogged, I think I retracted to far.
Thanks,
John
Thanks for the heads up on calibrating the e-steps for the Flexystruder. Going to set up my Flexydually today.
By the way one of the nice things about the slicer KISSlicer is that you can click on a part (actually right click on the icon view on the right side) and assign any extruder to any part / mesh. You can also import multiple dual extrusion parts and print them all at the same time. Cura and Simplify3d don’t let you do this. Also, KISSlicer’s parts usually print out at least as good if not better vs the other slicers. Only drawback is it’s not open source, but neither is Simplify3D.
So in Simplify3D I discovered the way to do this is to create a process for each extruder, I made one called ABS for my primary extruder and one called Flexy for my Flexystruder. Then when you import a part you can assign it to either process and when you print it only heats the selected extruder.
If you have split STL files for a dual extruder part you can import both STL files and assign each one to the process with the desired extruder and print both together (I haven’t tried this yet).
If you want to use one extruder for the part and another extruder for infill or support you can create a process with 2 extruders and then in the process settings assign the desired extruder for infill or support as desired and print.
The problem I had originally is that if you create a process with 2 extruders it will heat both even if your part is only using one of them, the trick to using only one extruder at a time is to only have one extruder in your process, but you can have as many processes as you want and assign any part you are printing to whichever process you want.
The other thing to be aware of in Simplify3D is the difference between a process and a factory file. A factory file contains all the processes you have defined, but you can’t save an individual process. So a factory file is an aggregate of processes, but you can also have multiple factory files. (I suppose you could save a factory file with a single process for one extruder and save another factory file with a single process for a different extruder.) It’s a bit of a challenge to determine how to organize your factory files and processes to keep track and find everything for particular STL files.
The Simplify3D tutorial files are great but I wish they would publish a detailed manual that explains each setting in the program for each menu item. The saving grace is that Simplfy3D support has been very responsive and very helpful to me.
John
Yes, Simplify3D has processes, but it does not allow you to import multiple dual extrusion parts and print them all at the same time. If you try to merge the dual extrusion parts it clumps them all together in the center of the bed.
It sounds like you got it to do what you wanted it to do which is all that really matters.
Inventabuild,
I downloaded KISSlicer, never heard of it until I saw your post, I’ll try it out. Is there a manual for KISSlicer? Beta 1.5 has been out since Sept. 2014 but not released yet? Is any active development going on for it?
How do you handle dual extruder parts, multiple STL files, AMF files? What filaments are you using with your dual extruder? Are you just printing multiple colors or different filaments? Just curious, and thanks for the info.
John
Sorry for the late reply. To load dual extruder parts consisting of multiple stls you simply click the Open button in the upper right corner of KISSlicer then find your files and click on them one at a time while holding down the ctrl key to highlight all the stls at once, then click open. KISSlicer automatically merges all the stls to where they go in the part.
Next right click on the picture of your part in the upper right of the KISSlicer screen and left click on Extruder Map in the popup. There you can click on each individual mesh (stl) and assign whichever extruder to it that you want to.
To utilize dual extruders though you need to select the Number of Extruders = 2 in the Printer / Hardware tab, then KISSlicer will give you two extruders to assign to your meshes.
Here is a link to the Unofficial KISSlicer manual: http://3ntr.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/KISSlicer_manual_EN_080215.pdf
And here is a link to the current KISSlicer Forum: http://www.kisslicertalk.com/
The people there are very helpful
And I may have mentioned this?, but you can open up as many dual extruder parts as you want to fill up your build plate w/ them in KISSlicer; however Cura and Simplify3D only allow one dual extruder part at a time on the build plate.
My Lulzbot Dual Extruder broke, but I was printing multiple color prints w/ ABS and I was also printing ABS w/ HIPS for dissolvable support. I hope to get it back up and running again soon because I’d like to attach the Dually Cooly fan mount to print dual color PLA parts as well.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.