Best posts made by zakfarias

So, due to some health issues regarding my heart and blah blah blah I haven’t been here in a couple years nor have I really been inventive or active with the 3D printing community and my machines.

I’m now getting back to a healthy enough point where I am ready to dive back in and finish hammering out a design that used to bug the hell out of me in the back of my mind. Problem is…I may or may not have totally forgotten some of the finer intricacies of Duet hardware, coding, firmware, setups and etc.

A little bit of background:
By trade I am an injection mold designer and Cam programmer for 2 and 3 axis machines in a decent sized machine shop. I got started in the RepRap movement many a moons ago as can be seen if you walk into my workshop and see the skeletal remains of dozens and dozens of printer and CNC projects that slowly became the byproducts of evolution across the years.

The machine goal: Multi Tool changer CoreXY overbuilt and overengineered to an extent that anyone working in the sales department would say “Who in the bloody hell let the engineers have no restrictions?!?!?”

(I’ve come to realize it isn’t quite as inventive as it used to be since E3D and friends have all started to put out similar products which I totally haven’t stolen some inspiration from now that I am back in the groove; albeit a little bit of a clumsy groove)
The main iteration of this machine is intended to be stupidly overdone. Why? Because even though I have built dozens of machines I largely only use a small handful for their specific “strengths” and I’d like to take all the good stuff and downsize to using a single “all purpose machine of machines” that can focus on high speed production, large formats, high detail, fine detail, blah blah blah the operator’s wetdream scenario kind of deal. After I satisfy this itch to build a machine that can stand above all my others I will of course revisit the Design and BOM and make it an “accessible” design catered to Reprappers with more off the shelf and off the printer parts and pieces.

The first iteration though will be all off the shelf parts or machined parts utilizing my Sphinx or at work CNCs/Bridgeports/and Lathe to produce the parts.

The CoreXY motion system will be inspired by the E3D design but using things such as precision shoulder bolts and less cantilever aspects blah blah blah not tooooo worried about that stuff.

The main things that concern me is the Duet, wiring, setup, and actual usage.
Build Volume: 400mm x 300mm x 500mm
-Aluminum Extrusion Skeleton
-Enclosed
-24V oversize PSU feeding a junction block that breaks off to converters to 12v and 5v to run accessories like the excessive amount of water cooling.
-Aluminum plates to hold the XY system to be “singular”
-A bunch of other small QOL like painless belt tensioning and leveling (I don’t really want to use the 3 independent Z-leveling unless I have to), fire detection, thermal circuit breakers for the bed, water cooled stepper motors
-Z-axis: 3 linear guides driven by single Z or 1 maybe 3 linear guides driven by a single Z motor synced to 3 leads
-Mains powered Silicone heatbed (considering using 2 smaller ones to have independent "zones" for when I don't need the whole thing heated but not sure if it is really worth the hassle and what setup is needed both on firmware and slicing side)
-Berd air for part cooling because huge fan of it on my other machines I built before health issues.
-4 tool changer:

The plan is for the machine to have 4 kinematic coupled tools (design in progress)
*2 tools using E3D-V6 hotends with a water cooled cold side that will be lathe built. Extruders being Bondtech BMGs since I’ve always been a Bondtech fan sponsor me please. Intention is for these nozzles to usually be 0.4mm and used for multi color/multi material/ or just multi-roll jobs.
*1 tool will be E3D Volcano being driven again by a Bondtech BMG. Will probably use the same Water cooling setup for this one too as the E3D-V6. This will be the structural work horse and when a job needs to be fast build time and doesn’t have or require fine details

*The final tool will be a support material or unique material slave such as TPU. It will probably follow the same format and be Bondtech BMG driving a water cooled E3D V6. Or maybe I’ll be lazy and slap the Titan Aqua I have lying around on it.

So all in all I think the only fans in the entire printer will be PSU, Duet, and Exhaust since all motors and hotends will be water cooled. which should help tremendously with maintaining a controlled printer environment.

How is firmware and setup pain going to be here?
Plan is for Z axis to home to the Z-plate and not the bed with a mechanical Endstop. Reason for this, as I have painfully learned on some of my other machines, is that if I am running a large number of parts in succession I don’t clean the bed in between each one. Since I mostly work in PETG, once I lay down some Aquanet I can run about a dozen rounds of a part before I need to clean and reapply…or just spray another coat down and worry about cleaning later. The issue with this though is on my machines that use IR sensor homing and leveling I get misreadings on the Z as the Aquanet layer and print residue builds up which hurts first layer performance. So I was thinking of just sticking with manual leveling the Z and utilizing the mechanical endstop of the Build Plate. And just leave options in the design to convert to IR sensors on each Tool. Or do more fancy and elegant solutions exist now?

So if anyone has any, "hey look out for this or you are going to need to do this" or "Why don't you just do this" advice I am ready to absorb all of it and get back into the swing of things! especially in regards to firmware and slicing with the new generation toys since I'm a wee bit rusty now.

Also looking for ideas on what to use for Enclosure panels. Originally I was going to go with melamine and perhaps hydro dip it carbon fiber, But alas in the states melamine is near impossible to source, especially in thinner sheets. Could go HDPE but not sure how it will hold up with the printer's chamber? and I can't hydro dip it as nicely so stuck with that base HDPE look. Plan is whatever material I can source that can hold up to the temperature abuse and look nice I'll toss on the Sphinx and cut it out.

Also just as for fun:
What all else is new, fun, and exciting with the additive world and Duet hardware?
I haven’t been around for a long while and last I recall Duet community was transferring from 1.17 -> 1.18 I think. So no idea what kind of hidden gems have popped up. I did periodically lurk to peek at the Railcore design every once in a blue moon though.

Apologies for the blurb and most likely horrible sentence flow with abstract random ideas interjected. I am kind of just letting my thoughts ramble as I type bad habit of mine

Hello and good day!
I'm popping back in again after yet another long hiatus.

Finishing up the physical build on the latest addition to my workshops stable; which is another 3D printer but this time with a 4 tool changer.

What I am wondering with all the current Duet electronics; is what full array of goodies should I be gunning for to suit my build best? I haven't done a from-scratch build in a couple years due to on-going issues concerning my heart and nervous system and all the machines I have are running Duet Wifi with OLD firmwares [like June of 2018 firmware(if it works it works)]

General gist: Fully enclosed CoreXY 4 Tool changing printer with 400x300x700 print area with a 900x500x1200 footprint before factoring filament spools.
The machine is structurally built entirely from aluminum plates, milled aluminum parts, a couple milled steel parts, and aluminum extrusions. No load "bearing" part is made of plastic. Now miscellaneous stuff like mounting points for Power supplies and all are 3D printed but any structural piece and any part of the motion system is made from aluminum or steel. All the parts are already made so there is little room for flexibility/changes at this stage.

• CoreXY motors (2)

• 3 Z motors

• Endstop mounted to gantry carriage that is used for homing Z and probing Z.

• 1 endstop attached to each Tool Docking location to use for safety check (kind of need help on figuring out the config to have machine do a safety check to see if/what tool is being held so that it can determine if it needs to park a tool before homing/probing/etc) (So, 4 endstops here)

• 4 Extruders (Bondtech BMGs)
  -> 2 driving mosquitos
  -> 1 driving standard E3D V6 for supports/miscellaneous materials
  ->1 driving an E3D Volcano
  -> means 4 more hot end fans as well

• 4 Berd Air setups for nozzle cooling

• Probably sensorless homing on XY but not sure on that. Mounting locations have been pre built though in case i go to physical endstops. (entire machine is built from aluminum plates/milled parts/extrusions so the build is somewhat set in stone now)

• Tool changer motor (its basically using the E3D setup for their backplate/changer with everything forward of the servo plate being rebuilt and modified from ground-up to suit my needs)

• 12V Water cooling pump controlled by a relay triggered by the board for cooling XY stepper motors

• Older PanelDue i5 (think I bought it in 2019 when I first started this project before health went sour)

• Keenovo heatpad 110v (400mm x 300mm)

• Bunch of miscellaneous Fans for cooling electronics and the likes

• Probably missing a few things that are slipping from my thoughts at the moment

I'm a big noob with the newer electronics for one and have been away from the 3D printer game for a long while besides just operating my existing machines for whatever work comes my way. I was looking at Duet 3 since its the latest and greatest and using the Toolboards mounted to the back of each stepper BUT I am not sure if I have the room to mount it without hitting the brackets (if pancake is 25mm body depth or I use spacers to make the Toolboard be at least 25mm away from where the motor mounts to the carrier plate then I am good for clearance but it does mean losing my cooling fins on the the stepper)

Thanks and much appreciation for anyone that chimes in to help! Just don't want to overbuy on electronics and have like a grand worth of Duet electronics tossed together randomly if it is not necessary or is redundant.

So, I popped up again a little while ago to reintroduce myself since I have been away from 3D printing for a good while due to health; but I'm back and diving right back into an old tool changer machine design I had been working on to add to the stable. Most the motion system and etc are all plotted out and prepped but I was sitting in my office the other day and had a concerning thought about Tool Parking.

I know the general thought process with Tool Changers is to just follow a pre-start routine and make sure all Tools are parked and none are on the gantry but how much effort would it be to make the Duet check? I tend to run production batches on my machines when I'm open for business and sometimes things can get hectic and someone might forget or neglect to do a pre-start routine.

I am not terribly familiar with macros on Duet (never really had a need for them since most my machines are "set them and leave them")
But as an initial spitball idea:
Machine: CoreXY with 4 Tools that use kinematic coupling and grade AH magnetic holders.

Could one perhaps put an endstop, maybe a modified optical or laser, for each Tool where they are parked to trigger and identify Tools as "parked"
And any Tool that isn't shown as parked could have Duet home machine XY and then park the missing Tool before initiating any other Gcode operations?

I know, for my machine layout, a hard mechanical endstop may be difficult to make reliable because my "Tool Parkers" use a trapping mechanism to help disengage the Tools from the gantry, but, then the Tools hang loosely on the parkers after gantry disengagement (still trapped from falling though until gantry re-engages)

And as usual; sorry if I ramble and go on tangents or hard to read. I tend to just let my thoughts run rampant while I type.