Would it be possible to use 4 of the creality ender 3 style bowden extruders (like the one here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WHYBVJ5/ref=twister_B0BKSW1LW3?_encoding=UTF8&th=1) with my direct drive instead of the 2 motor setup? This would be a little more expensive but would have (mostly) all metal parts. Has anyone else done this? If so, it would be appreciated if you shared the code.
I really appreciate any help you can provide.
I'm don't know anything about your printer, but if it is running Klipper you should be able to get it to work. I'm persistent, retired with a lot of time, getting close to having it work on my Rat Rig, mechanically it was easy to setup, and they supply some good Klipper libraries, my challenge is their libraries overlay the Rat Rig and figuring out what I need from each.
I understand. I was not sure what printer you had. I like to experiment and this looked like a good solution to try. I had the 3DC and could never get it to work, but saw in my opinion what the weak points were. I have a Bambu X1C and a Prusa XL with 5 heads,so saw what can be done with multifilament systems. The advantages they both have is a way to detect filament error and they have a good way to swap the filament. The 3DC has neither, it depends on hitting a switch and hoping the retraction and insertion work, with no feedback.
The Klippy mod was a big improvement, but not universal addon, it had to ve designed for each printer.
There is a commercial product that does this. CoPrint. I ordered the Kickstarter and have been working on it for a couple of months. The hardware looks very good, and I have been able to print a single color. What has taken me so long is I'm trying to interface to a Rat Rig which has a very customized version of Klipper. They seem to have out of the box solutions for many Creality printers. You might want to take a look at them, what I like is the system is complete, extruders to push the filament to the hot end, which has the actual extruder a filament cutter custom heater nozzle and built in bed sensor.