Tyler AndersonI have been working on adding support for 4 extruders to Marlin, using [dob71]'s dual extrusion code as an example. Its on GitHub under the bipolar-quad branch. I've double checked everything and it compiles, but havn't had a chance to test it yet since I've been working on the semifinals video, which is uploading as we speak. Really getting tired of my own voice.
In other news, I was getting terrible adhesion to the print surface. The problem seemed to be the tape I was using. It was shinier and smoother than regular blue masking tape. I ran to home depot and got some Scotch "Classic" painter's tape and things are sticking much better now.
The aluminium platter may have been a bad idea. We chose it because we wanted something light, rigid, and thermally conductive. But in reality it just acts like a giant heat sink, cooling the part rapidly unless you have the heater turned on. Also it doesn't help that the heater is being run at half power (12V from the ATX instead of 24V). It reaches steady state somewhere around 60C, which is good enough for PLA but not great for ABS.
Here are the latest test prints. Its having a lot of trouble with more complicated objects because the arm motors keep skipping steps. Don't know whats up with that.
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Steeper's are not as powerful as electric motors of the same size, (the coils and smaller for steppers)
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Still having trouble with the arm motors skipping steps
check volts and amps, check that it is staying cool
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24 Volts, not mains to kill, not tested but the idea
https://hackaday.io/project/8680Are you sure? yes | no
How is the project going?
Still having trouble with the arm motors skipping steps?
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You could put a 240 or 110v silicon heater onto the aluminium plate. I know that lots of people do PLA without a heatbed but I find a heatbed for any serious PLA printing a must. The mains powered silicon heaters do cost a bit, but don't require a larger PSU, heat up really fast and solid state relay's can be had for a few dollars from aliexpress. Anyhow just an idea that might help :-)
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