Dual V3 bed alignment

I have a taz 5 and recently purchased a dual V3 toolhead. After trying several mulitcolor prints; all of which look horrible, I decided to swap and print my primary from extruder2 and secondary from extruder1. When I did this the printer made spaghetti. Then i noticed that the right hand (extruder2 nozzle) is slightly higher than the lefthand nozzle and when the lefthand nozzle went over and/or across something printed by the right hand nozzle it scrapped it up.

At first I thought the toolhead was defective and the nozzles were not aligned at the factory. But later it dawned on me that if the toolhead was not setting in the cradle level then the same thing could occur. Since the taz6 has automatic bed leveling then maybe the software deals with this, but the taz5 does not. I intend to try and level them better by adjusting the toolhead in the cradle and locking it down. This is however not a very accurate way of doing this.

I should note that right before my last spaghetti incident I had just leveled the bed using a dial indicator mounted in the toolhead mount.

Is the toolhead being slighty tilted really my problem? If so is there some sort of procedure to follow that ensures the nozzles are level with the bed; assuming that are in fact level with each other.

There are a few ways to adjust the “level” of the printhead nozzles. As long as the bed is level and the T0 nozzle (left) is at the proper height, rotate the right-side lead screw to adjust the height of the T1 nozzle (right). This is effectively adjusting the tilt of the gantry. A full rotation of the screw is 1mm (you may want to double-check that search acme screw pitch). Don’t go crazy otherwise the gantry may start binding. My rule of thumb is to use eighth turns, and no more than 1 full rotation… if you need more, go back and make sure the toolhead is level in the cradle.

To test the level, I print a 2-3layer, 1.5mm (approx two extrusion) width circle with only the T0. And then the same circle with T1 to compare adhesion and width of the extrusion. Get them the same and the nozzles should be level.

Hope that helps.

You should also make sure that the toolhead is fully seated in the toolhead mount. Its a tight fit and if not fully seated, you would have one side slightly higher than the other. When they assemble the V3 units, they use an aluminum machined jig to set the nozzle heights in the cooling block so the nozzles should be very close to perfectly aligned as assembled.

On my TAZ 6, I had to do a tiny bit of filing / sanding on my Dual V3 mount to make sure it seated properly each time I install it. I also had to loosen and tighten the “foot” on the toolhead mount as it was slightly off and the screw at the top didn’t line up. With the single toolhead, the seating in the “foot” isn’t as critical. After the “foot” adjustment, my single toolhead fits better as well.