Converting a TAZ 5 single extruder for mini

Has anyone tried to converting a TAZ 5 single extruder 0.5 mm to a single extruder for LulzBot Mini? Thanks for the help!

I really wouldn’t recommend using a TAZ 5 tool head on a Mini. The reason is that the tool head is a different dimension and the firmware won’t differentiate the difference. Your printer will think that you have a Mini tool head and this can cause some potential physical damage to your printer.

That being said, if you have a V2C extruder with a V2 0.5 mm hexagon hot end, you can switch that out with the Mini 1’s hot end assembly.

There are some helpful instructions that you can use for a guide here: https://ohai.lulzbot.com/project/replacing-lulzbot-mini-hexagon-hot-end/maintenance-repairs/

I purchased my mini used and it came with a separate Taz printhead. Not sure why. The components seem to be the same as the mini printhead just mounted on a different backplate. Is this really not the case? Maybe there are hidden differences.

The old taz-5 print-head was based on a buddaschnozzle hot-end; the newer taz print-heads and the mini heads are all based on the hexagon hot-end.

The differences between the taz version with the hexagon hot-end and the mini version are minor - the biggest mechanical differences are the mounting plates, and the connector – and the taz unit has a pair of cooling fans.

Note that there are two different versions of the hexagon hot-end for both the taz and the mini. The older has a tiny little heat-sink cooling fan, the newer has a larger fan. The difference is actually a bit more involved between the two; other parts fit a bit differently as well. I’ll not go into the details here, but I’ve converted several print heads over the past few years – one of them twice (turned a damaged mini print head I picked up for a song on eBay into a flexystruder for my mini, then when I got a Taz 6, I converted it into a flexystruder for the Taz. I’ve also built a couple of extruders from spare parts – much cheaper than buying them. So the point is that if you have the hexagon hot-end, you can easily construct either a Taz or a Mini print head.

What is a ‘flexistruder’ and how does it differ from a normal extruded?

It’s a variation of the standard extruder that is capable of handling flexible filaments.

Alas, while it does a great job with flexible filaments, it can’t do traditional filaments – so you needed both prior to the introduction of the aerostruder (which effectively obsoleted both of the older hexagon-hot-end extruders).