Ok so now that I can successfully get the unit to push 4 colors to the extruder I need some help getting I’m the tips of the filament shaped to be able to retract or reload and not get stuck. if anyone has the unload settings in their direct drive setups would be great to see if you had to tweek the generated g code.
ender3 v2 microswiss direct drive
I've been able to get my Ender3 V2 with MicroSwiss direct drive to work with the following settings for tip formation and extraction.
; quickly retract the filament to shape it
G0 E-50 F10000
G0 E50 F2000
G0 E-50 F10000
G0 E-35 F50
What this does is extract the filament just into the plastic tube between the hotend and extruder at high speed then pushes it back down to the tip, repeats the high speed retraction then slowly retracts to cool out of the extruder gears.
I found the tubing from the extruder to the Y need to be at least 2.0mm IDO so as not to jam because the best shaped filament tip I've been able to get is 1.95mm in dia.
No... the positions are absolute... so it retracts fast to 50mm, then slowly an additional 30mm... (to the 80mm position) then it loads it all the way into the hot end (1mm from it's original position.) However, when you're saying it's not loading into the extruder... is your extruder starting up early enough? Is it spinning as the filament reaches it so that the 3D Chameleon and the extruder are pushing/pulling at the same time?
I'm at this step right now as well. I'm pretty consistently able to load filament with any of the 4 gears, but the unloading is still problematic. Specifically, it tends to get stuck when the tip gets to the extruder (can't grip) and I'm guessing I need to shape the filament better.
I don't fully understand the generated g-code for unloading. ie:
G0 E-50 F2000 ; quickly retract the filament to shape it G0 E-80 F600; slowly allow it to cool G0 E1 F2000 ; blob elimination G0 E-50 F2000 ; quickly retract the filament to shape it G0 E-80 F600; slowly allow it to cool G0 E1 F2000 ; blob elimination G0 E-10 F2000 ; quickly retract the filament to shape it G0 E1 F2000 ; quickly ram the filament to shape it G0 E-10 F2000 ; quickly retract the filament to shape it G0 E1 F2000 ; quickly ram the filament to shape it G0 E-50 F2000 ; quickly retract the filament to shape it G0 E-80 F100; slowly allow it to coolMy understanding of the above code is that it retracts the filament by 50mm quickly, then another 80mm slowly... then it pushes forward 1mm? to eliminate blobs? I don't yet understand why you would want to retract 50+80 and then only move it forward 1mm after it has cooled. It then does seem to repeat the same process but I guess the "G0 E1 F2000" throws me off since the filament would be only moving back such a small amount? I can fix the distances to be specific to my extruder/hot end distances (it's bowden tube, not direct drive) but what is the generator trying to accomplish so I can modify it?
It really doesn't matter where in the tube it retracts to as long as it's somewhere in a cool section. It's the total distance that really matters... and even that isn't so exacting... When it is retracted out of the extruder, we always run an extra 30mm back out to make sure it's fully expelled from it.
If you're using PrusaSlicer, I just use the built in settings for Ender 3... then reduce the retraction since you don't have a Bowden tube. Then our generated gcode gets added to the Tool Change gcode... set the printer configuration to 4 extruders and make sure you copy all the settings from Extruder 1 to the other 3 verbatim.
That should be all you need to worry about. The out of the box settings should be great.
Bill
So... the temperature I'm referring to is the temperature you're changing the colors at, not what you're printing at... they can be two different temps. And yep... if you're using Cura, it could also be not taking into account the retraction distance on color change... for some reason, they don't include that in the current position... so it could be off by 10 or 12mm depending on that setting. As for the purge tower Cura, if you're talking about the hole in the center of the purge tower, that is normal... they have a very odd logic in their system and they don't even support the purge middle for previous layers... so a lot of the time, it'll just dump the purge into the middle without it attaching to anything. Personally, I only use PrusaSlicer for it now, as they really understand the details of MMU styles machines much better. Ultimaker sticks with just two colors for Cura, and really don't support it beyond that.
Yep... so, the GGode generator doesn't know about the specific design of your machine... which means it's not backing it out far enough at the start... we need to tune that so that when it retracts, it only goes all the way to the Capricorn tube. Then we can do the bounce from there to the tip. So, at the start of our code, it's only going to E-20... which isn't into that Capricorn yet... so we need to move it farther, maybe something like E-50 (but you'll need to measure where the optimal distance is). Then we need to make sure the bounce goes all the way to the tip... if it's actually needed. It should go to the tip as it is... but you might need to speed it up so it doesn't have a chance to melt again in the hot end. I've had customers report that they don't need to do anything at all with that extruder... just simply retract it into the Capricorn... let it cool... then retract it out.
Bill