Palette 2 / Canvas Hub Announcement -- Duet compatible?
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I've got a question or two comparing the Palette 2 with the Crane Quad head.
Distinct switching from one extruder to another (color or material) is generally going to be the rule for me. Both systems have to be actively purged for this to happen. Is there a difference between the two in their abilities to do this?
Filament waste due to purging when switching is unavoidable, unless a transition is allowable or desired. Easy software control of this purge is highly desirable; it would be great to use as infill, but some of my products will be thin-walled with minimal infill. I realize the slicer is key to making this happen, but broadly, is either system better than the other for minimizing the purge volume?
I like the versatility of the E3D interchangeable tool head system, priced (for mechanism only, no hot-ends) between the Crane head and Palette 2. Clearly a benefit of it is no purge waste at all. None of these are currently shipping.
I can buy an entire Crane printer, with Quad head, for less than the Palette 2 Pro, even though it's print area is fairly small. My thoughts would be to use it as is while figuring it out, while building/buying a larger printer, and then just move the Quad head later.
Thoughts?
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@plasticmetal You could also throw the Prometheus system into the mix.
Purging can be done a number of ways. I use 3 different techniques with my Diamond mixing hot end depending on the model I'm printing. If the colour change occurs on layer change, then you can often get away with no purge simply but printing inner perimeters before outer ones. If it's a small model or the colour change happens within the same layer, then it is necessary to extrude some filament. Most systems print a sacrificial tower of some sort but this is often wasteful as the tower has to be printer on every layer change, even if there is no colour change. I prefer to move the head outside the bed and simply extrude into a "bucket" which is less wasteful (in terms of time as well as filament). details here https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/5-colour-printing-with-a-purge-bucket/
The final approach I use is to advance the tool change point with the gcode file so effectively the filament is changed before it is needed. The easiest way to explain that is to point you to this part of my blog https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/multi-colour-printing-without-wipe-or-prime-towers/
