Dual Extruder V3 looks promising!

I was looking at my dual v2.1 unit (that I used less than once…) thinking that there HAD TO BE a better design. I spent hours calibrating it only to be frustrated by the amount of sag and vibration. I work with Stratasys uPrint 3D printers that have a very compact head that uses only one motor to accomplish dual extrusion. I thought I should just try to design my own dual extruder… then I saw the new dual V3. I have read about its bugs, but it seems close to being worked out. I wish there was more information available about its performance and availability.

TL;DR: The V3 does perform better than the V2.

Having both nozzles close to the gantry rails makes the toolhead mechanically more stable. With the V2, printing with T1 needed to be slowed down to reduce the cantilevered effect. The quality of the prints are noticeably better. Comparable to printing with just T0 on the V2 or a single extruder toolhead.

I’ve got a TAZ 5, so no experience with issues related to the autoleveling or wiping. Also only printed ABS, so can’t comment on heat creep. The hotends heats up a little quicker than the Hexagon. Not sure if there’s a big weight difference… I think V2 used half-height NEMAs also. No more printed gears so the e-steps are consistent. Best of all no more delicatley mounted mini-blowers, which makes the printer much quieter at idle.

If the filament grinds out due to a filament jam (or blockage from being too close to the bed), its difficult to remove the filament. haven’t figured out why, but it seems inline with the initial observation from another user that the filament swells and can’t be pulled back through the heat break.

Filament runout sensors are a good idea, if printing remotely or unattended. With the Wade’s extruder, pliers/forceps can grip the end of the filament past the hobbed bolt. With this design, there doesn’t seem to be a way to access the filament past the idlers without taking apart the extruder body.

Haven’t tried any dual extrusion prints. Long story, I screwed up my x-carriage during installation, and the toolhead doesn’t sit flush against the x-carriage on one-side. Hoping to have it sorted out by the weekend for some dual extrusion tests. I’m hoping its just a 13mm X-offset for the setup. We’ll see how accurately the aluminum heatsink was machined.

I used the a few rotations of the Z-lead screw to level out the height of T1… not sure if that’s the right way to do it.


Sorry for the long post. Overall very impressed with the side-by-side design. Fixing the hotend with a common heatsink was smart. Prints from either individual extruder look great!

I enjoyed the details. Please update after you do some dual extrusion tests. Very interested to hear the results.

You bring up a good point about Auto bed leveling. I wonder how that would work with a side-by-side design.

I have the V3 on a Taz 6. The auto leveling aligns the left nozzle on the left side of the bed and the right nozzle on the right side of the bed. So far it seems to work well. For dual extrusion I’ve mainly been using esun PLA+ and PVA for support. The most difficult part is getting the settings correct. I’ve got it to work but I need to take the time to run tests to determine the exact settings. I’ve used ABS in the extruders but haven’t tried with HIPS yet. Probably after the holidays.

Still haven’t sorted out my x-carriage issues, but was able to get a dual extruded print.



Both filament types are ABS, T0 (left extruder) was White, T1 (right extruder) was Black. Printed at layer height .2 and speed 4200mm/s with an exterior layer speed of ~2500mm/s with a wipe pillar.

Quick analysis:

  • Black extruded great
  • The right profile of the Moai is much better than the left which has artifacts from filament ooze. Basically, this is from T0 crossing the project when printing with T1… hence no artifacts on the right side of the Moai.
  • White looks overextruded by just a few % - testing a 95% multiplier on a standalone print
  • White ooze remnants on left side - need to check retraction and lower print temp to control ooze.
  • T0 also happens to be the side where the extruder is not completely flush against the x-carriage. So it could also be a stability issue.

Overall acceptable print. Just have to work out ooze issues and properly securing the toolhead.

Standalone prints from each extruder.


The Black again looks great… hard to see in the photo, but little to no-banding. Great matte finish with the eSUN ABS+ filament.

The White isn’t bad, but definitely more banding. Its erradic, so I think its just the toolhead not secured to the x-carriage. Also looks like the initial height of the nozzle might be too close to the bed.

Anyway… hope the images help for evaluation.

Thanks for the pictures. The white print is clearly affected by something. The black one looks to be as good as a single extruder print. The hot ends are identical, correct? Were these printed in the same job or as individual prints? I have read that there were some problems with the mounting hole position that caused the extruder assembly to not sit properly in the carriage. Have you experienced issues with this?

T0 (white) is having issues. I’m pretty sure its to my x-carriage and not the toolhead. Dragging my feet on sorting it out, but hopefully this coming week.

T1 looks as good as a single extruder. The side-by-side design is the biggest contributor to the improved printing.

I didn’t have a problem with the hole height… it could have been revised on my issue, but I can’t say for sure due to my x-guide not being on the x-carriage properly.

If installing the Dual Extruder V3 on an early TAZ5, print the x-guide v2 before installation. Be careful not to cross thread the inserts when installing onto x-carriage.

Try swapping the fillament and see if the issue follows the fillament. Also white abs usually needs 5 degrees difference in temperature compared to black.

Great minds do think a like!

My wife preferred the lens cap holder in white… so I swapped the filaments. Here’s the outcome of the white filament from the other extruder (T1).


There’s a little case of elephant foot due to the initial nozzle height a little close to the bed (just getting used to the modular bed). But the extruded wall is very uniform (some slight banding if you zoom in). I probably need to reduce the multiplier for the white filament…

Overall, it looks pretty good. So definitely just my issue with the x-carriage. I think that seals it for me, this toolhead is staying on my TAZ 5.

Hope these pictures helped… I’ll post another dual extrusion when my x-carriage issue is sorted out.

That’s pretty fast there. :astonished:

Umm… I may have an extra m in there. S3D’s speed always confuses me. :slight_smile:

Update: S3D uses min… so it mm/min.

Got my x-carriage issue sorted out. Here’s the dual extrusion Moai.



Put the black in T0 (left) and white in T1 (right). Adjusted the retraction to 1.1mm, seems to help the T0 nozzle ooze on the left side… but also used a ooze shield this time. So hard to say which helped more.

Overall pretty good. Black and white contrast a lot… but the black filament seems to extrude better.

Print looks pretty good. Is this with the latest FW from Cura .63? Any glitches that needed a workaround?

Im curious if this unit works with 1.75mm filament as well as the other tool heads do. Might limit oozing problems?

Yeah, the prints are coming out nicely.

I’m actually using 1.1.5.44 or .54 whichever is the default when flashing through Cura. No issues… I slice with S3D and print with Octoprint, and its a TAZ 5 so no wipe or autolevel.

I haven’t tried with 1.75mm.