So after Makertech version of cura told me this print would take only 2 hours . . . finally after 6 hours I have completed a 5cm tall moai head dual colour print. So another positive I know it will carry out a print over 6 hours with out fail.
Does it look like the print quality of the example they used . . . NO (Iwould love for them to send the step file they used)
Did I make manual changes to the gcode the slicer put out . . . YES (that was very tedious)
Did I have to watch this print for the whole 6 hours . . .YES
Did I have to unblock the filaments during this print. . . .YES, I had to intervene 5 times during the first 2 hours. After that the filament change overs were fine.
To get the print to actually work I had to do 2 main things.
1. Open up the internal diameter of all 5 metal couples that feed the filament to the hotend. Long story short I ended up opening the ID’s up to 3/32 inches (2.38mm) using a 3/32 in drill bit and a pillar drill. This has drastically stopped the amount of blockages I have been having due to inconsistent filament width and also the filament cooling larger than 1.75mm.
2. I manually changed part of the gcode that was causing large amounts of blobbing on the purge tower.
This is what the original gcode looked like at the end of the purge during the colour swap.
G1 F1500 X144.458 Y186.149 E41.02784
G0 F2400 X143.836 Y186.149
G1 F1500 X138.849 Y181.162 E41.26007
;------- T0 End Gcode -------
T1
G92 E0
M105
M109 S200
G1 F4200 E-5
;MESH:Moai_Body.stl
G0 F2400 X165.677 Y104.074 Z0.18
G0 X168.058 Y104.487
This text in bold were the bits causing problems. At the end of the purge the hot end would pause in its place whilst it did a temperate check/change. After the temperature change it would then do a 5m retraction before moving to the print.
G1 F1500 X144.458 Y186.149 E41.02784
G0 F2400 X143.836 Y186.149
G1 F1500 X138.849 Y181.162 E41.26007
G92 E0
G1 F4200 E-5
;------- T0 End Gcode -------
T1
;MESH:Moai_Body.stl
G0 F2400 X165.677 Y104.074 Z0.18
G0 X168.058 Y104.487
I added a 5mm retraction to the end of the purge sequence and removed the temperature check.
I did a few tests with some small dual print calibration pieces and you can leave the temperature check in provided the 5mm filament retraction is before it.
This unfortunately I think it can only be changed by Makertech as it is the way the slicer is generating its instructions based on their pre-sets when they set the program up.
The stringing between the purge block and the head isn’t a problem of the printer that was also do to an issue in the gcode that I noticed when doing my alterations but didn’t correct as at the time I thought it was meant to be like that. Oh how I wish I trusted my gut instinct and just corrected it.
The print quality issues between the layers i believe is down to the speed at which it was printed. Instead of it being at 50mm/s i will drop it down to 35mm/s in the future.
Tomorrow I have planned a second print using a different slicer just to see the results. From looking at the gcode it does already look more positive.
We've just released an updated version of the dual splitter and also added instructions for removing the pauses between switches.
More info here:
https://www.forum.makertech3d.com/forum/3d-printing/dual-extrusion-splitter-v2
Finaly did it. I was so close throwing in a dowel on this one. I think it took me like literally 30 tries. Finaly what did it was standart cura with most of @sebastian waters settings. As u can see my print was 13h, did it in 2 parts (point of pause is seen on print as well). 0 nozzle gloggs and for some reason had to manually push the nr 2 color filamet in for first color swap. (Somethig to do with cura settings, had to do it every try, but only for the first swap)
So in my experience "Prime tower size" is in correlation with "Prime Tower minimum Volume". For example for me setting the minimum volume to 18 was just not clearing the color enough and i tried setting it 30 as my tower size was 20. But that made it even worse, meaning when it was time to change the color it was really unstable with one time correct amount (for example 15) of circles in prime tower and for the other it was doing only 1-2 circles and back to print.
So my final go it was 30 for both. Also its highly reccomened to set the "Nozzle standby temp" equal to print temp. Otherwise it means it will wait quite long until the temp lowers to that standby temp, and it does that on your print. For some reason not ooozing nearly as much as with Makertech cura.
I also added 1 line of code "G1" to one extruder end setting. Just for it to move to certain spot on the table after it was finished extruding its layer. For coinsidence it moved right over my purge tower and i had "Wipe inactive nozzle on prime tower" also ticked. So i quess thats why my prime tower has miljon of tots on it.
Also for cause of the massive lenght of the "Nozzle retraction distance" if u have 1kg spool on the printer it will move ur filament off the spool and if u dont correct it in every 0.5 to 1 hour it will ruin ur print :)
For conclusion i really think that Makertech slice for dual extrusion is sooo much better if only they would remove that 5sec temp check setting that causes the plob on the prime tower. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE @Makertech remove it on the next cura version.
so as u can see the amount of filament and time wasted is ridicoulus but nobody ever said it would be easy, i just did not think it would be this hard 🎤
I did pretty much the same. Only tool i had was i file, so i filed them to a point where the sang was minimum and i cannot measure the holes diameter :D. But yeah it was obvious that it would snag inside the metal bouden not the tube. :)