tigertooth4

Hi @jphermans, Not yet! I'm redesigning the heatsink now. The problem with current design was the cost of machining the heatsink parts. And the whole design looked a little bit beefy too. That been said, the modified firmware for this printhead has been already shared at https://github.com/tigertooth4/Ultimaker2Marlin . I'll try to make the CAD file available as soon as I can. The current design did print amazingly well. I've done a lot of dual extrusion prints (mostly with PVA supports) with this printhead. Please check my instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/tigertooth4/) for more recent prints I've done with the Revo printhead. Thanks very much! Best, XJ

Yes, that's one of my goal. I should do more research into the heatsink part.

Hi guys, At the end of this year, I would like to share my design of a multi-nozzle tool head. A year ago I've posted some results of dual material 3d printing on my DIY Ultimaker 2 on G+ ( G+ link) I said there I used a different approach which has not been implemented (at least I didn’t find) elsewhere. Well, the nozzle changing idea I came up with was inspired by the multi-lens microscope (where three or four lenses are distributed around an axis, mounted on a plate. To change from one to another, one can simply rotate the whole plate so that the lens engaging is pointing towards the object). Took this idea, I replace the lenses with nozzles. For example, given three E3D kraken style heat breaks, heat blocks and nozzles distributes around a slightly leaned axis, at an even angle. The axis is leaned at a certain angle to ensure the nozzle engaged will be pointing perpendicularly towards the heated bed. Then the heat breaks will be inserted and mounted into a single heatsink. At the top of the heatsink a large 6807zz bearing is inserted to ensure the rotation with the given axis. Actually we use two bearings for the axis to avoid wobbling when performing the rotation. But a free rotation is not what we want, for the engaged nozzle will rotates away by fiction. To implement the intermittent rotation, I used the Geneva mechanism, as you can see the Geneva wheel is fixed in the back side of the heatsink. So that the drive gear rotates, drives the Geneva wheel rotates. And when the engaged nozzle is printing, Geneva wheel is constrained so that the rotation freedom is eliminated. To drive the gear, many approaches can be used. For simplicity, I took the mechanical way (inspired by the Ultimaker 3). I used a rack to drive the gear. So that if the rack is pushed from either sides, the drive gear rotates. To do that, two rods must be mounted on each sides of the printer, so that if the tool head moves towards the end of the rod, the rack will be pushed. Then a printed pivot part will connects these components together. The pivot part is also good for holding all the wires and Bowden tubes, which will be connected to the nozzles. Then comes with the printed enclosure and two fans. The left axial fan is for cooling the heatsink, and the right blower fan is for cooling the printed parts. Finally, at the bottom a sheet metal piece is mounted to the enclosure to prevent oozing from un-used nozzle. Also a printed shroud guides the air flow out from the blower fan to the printed parts. Currently the whole tool head design can be used as a module for UM2. The rack can be pushed by two rods which are fixed on two sides of the wall of the UM2 machine. As you may see here currently only two nozzles have been mounted. The repeat accuracy is impressive, I’ve printed a lot of dual-extrusion models, such as the Gyro, the traffic cone, the hand-drill and also a strandbeest I designed on thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3263196). I’m working on the hardware and software to make three nozzle printing possible. Also, I’m trying to make this design more compact. The heatsink part needs to be simplified, improved, for easy making. And I have not give a good name for this tool head. So please help me to improve it! Any ideas, comments, names are appreciated! Also I’ve some spared parts, I’ll be very happy to help you to try this out. Best, XJ

Great idea! A servo mechanism is worth trying in this case. Mag-attaching hotends and oozing preventing save a lot of time for changing and printing. I had a similar rotary idea. I'm working on implementing for quite some time. Hoping to test out and post my result soon. Cheers, XJ

@meduza No, the white one was PETG, the black one was PC. But I've tried some resins, one was orange and fragile, the other one was clear and flexible, both works fine ( I've not printed for over 240 degree C, the clear one had some deformation at the bottom but ok in general). They are all un-identified Chinese resins, (actually I found someone printed them for me, so I don't know the brand they use) .

Hi guys, I've found the fusion360 hub link: please see the link below to view/download the whole DINKY design there: http://a360.co/2aE4NGz Thx!!

Sigh! I just lost a long editing ... Feels heart broken :( But anyway, thx very much @chenci and @neotko and other guys! I definitely like to share everything! This modular printhead was a part of my DIY UM2 go sized printer, called DINKY. But turns out it fits UM2 as well . My intention for it was to make multi-purpose, easy to change, fully functional and compact tool-heads. With this design, I've significantly increased the build volume for UM2 Go (it has 125mm x 113mm x 140mm build volume within the 271mm x 235mm x 289mm of overall size). Here's the exploded graph for this printer. You can find the original post for DINKY in G+ https://plus.google.com/114890721423630794211/posts/8gi446PtiaR A lot of pics and some vids can be found inside the post there. The connector it used was a clone of molex 43025 series connector, with 3mm distance between its pins, the original one can be found here: http://www.molex.com/molex/products/listview.jsp?query=43025&path=43025+inmeta:CollectionName%3DImpulse+inmeta:category%3DCrimp%2520Housings%26requiredfields=(engineeringnumber:43025%7Coldpartnumber:43025%7Cproductseries:43025)&offset=0&autoNav=0&sType=s&filter=&fs=&channel=products&encode=true A 8-pin model is suitable for the single nozzle printhead. BTW the pins can be retract using a pin removing tool, which makes the printhead repair easier. The original printhead design and the DINKY printer design as well, were shared via Fusion360 hub I believe. (However, for some reason I cannot access to the online hub right now. I'll update the link later). I've found the link: http://a360.co/2aE4NGz You should be able to download the whole design of DINKY via fusion360 hub ;-) The pics I've showed above were my first and second iterations of the printhead design. The black one was the my first version. It still uses the UM2 PTFE tube, spring, steel heatbreak and olsson block. It works fine for PLA printing. But later on I found some under-extrusion problem due to the lack of sufficient cooling for the PTFE and heatbreak. The whole printhead feels hot (feels like 60-90 degree C) because of the cooling problem. So I designed the light colored one. This time I redesigned the housing of heatsink, and used an E3D kranken-clone heatbreak . I also redesigned the heatblock, to make it more like a E3D volcano-style heatblock, but with UM2 heater and PT100 mounted. This two parts were held in place with a single M3 screw, just like the UM2 heatblock. But with the heater and PT100 mounted vertically to the horizontal, I can make the wire path more straight, and the overall size of the printhead was reduced. The heatsink improved the overall cooling! Now I can print with PC material in 260 degree C, with the whole printhead feels touchable during a 4-6 hours print ( It feels between 40-70 degree C), and therefore improved the extrusion. Here's the explode graph for the second version of my design. The pros for this modular printhead are its size and the freedom to change between different types of tool heads. For example I can change from .4 -nozzle printhead to .25-nozzle printhead, with the ease of unplug one connector and unscrew two m3 screws. I can mount different types of tool head as well ( such as a ball-pen head for 2d sketch, a gauge for tests and calibrations, or even laser engraver heads (which I'm hoping to do if I have time) ). My nearest goal is to make it easy to change between 2,85mm printhead and 1,75mm printhead (and I had a plan for multi-extrusion head as well). In order to do that, I have to add the second feeder, or, make one universal feeder for switching between 2,85 and 1,75 filaments The printhead design files are not well-organized right now. I'm planning to re-organize the files and share them later. Also, if someone wants to try out this printhead, I can make the CNCed parts as kits and try to deliver to you. Because I'm living in China, I think I can access to CNC guys easier and the parts should be cheaper. So just message me if you guys need more help with this printhead! Thx very much!

I did some modifications to the original UM2 hotend. I had the same thought with you, aimed at making the head easily interchangeable, modular and more compact in size. In order to do that, I've inspired by a lot of community posts, and designed mine from the ground up. I made a lot of the parts CNCed. I'm quite satisfied with the result I've got. Here's some pics of my work. Hope you find something interesting.

May the following works? Expand the body tab, and right click the body(s) you want to export.

For decrease the noise from z-axis, I think you can slow down z-axis movement speed a little bit. I think you can change that by lookup the menu on the LCD screen.

Hi guys, AFAIK UM2+ uses a geared feeder, with a 1 mod and 11 teeth and a 1 mod 44 teeth gear, which multiplies 4 times to the torque. Also, a smaller driving gear and a lever with longer arm. The lever can be pulled by hand. All these added more driving force to the filament and also increase precision. I've experienced under-extrusion a lot for quite some time! So I'm keeping track with improvements and modifications with this respect a lot. I was impressed and inspired by the belt gearbox feeder by Meduza in this thread: https://ultimaker.com/en/community/17033-meduzas-bolt-on-belt-geared-feeder-upgrade-for-um2 as well as the original UM2, UM2+ feeder design. With this knowledge I'm experimenting with my re-implemented UM2+ feeder, with printed parts, gears and 5mm rod and other parts from the original UM2. I'm using the original mounting holes of UM2 so no modification to the UM2 back panel is needed. And software side the only thing I've done is recalibrate and re-entered the E-step by using G-Code command M92 Exxx I just finished the prototype yesterday (with three 5mm flanged bearings, two brass gears, 0.5 mod 18 teeth and 0.5 mod 72 teeth resp. and 5x40mm steel rod) It works fine! The only thing I was not satisfied was the noise produced by the brass gears. It was a bit louder than the original UM2. Mostly was the clicking sound when retracting. I'm planning to use POM gears instead. But for now I'm also experimenting with printed gears, (1mod 10teeth and 1mod 35teeth). Since most of my parts were printed in PLA or PETG, I'm not sure how long it will last. Especially for the lever. If anybody interested in it, here's my current version http://a360.co/1PvoHyX in Fusion 360 (WIP).

I've measured again. It can be confirmed that my calculations were not bad;)

Thanks very much! That's exactly what I'm looking for!

Hi steve, I had some experiences as you had. I think a quick fix could be like this: 1. unscrew and remove the left motor cover to expose the y-axis motor and the feeder motor; 2. unscrew the four screws of the filament feeder box to separate the feeder motor and feeder box (watch out do not let the feeder motor drop otherwise it will damage the heatbed) 3. open the feeder box it will expose the spring, bearing and the jammed filament (everything may pop out, so if you don't know how to put them back, check the UM2 assemble guide first which you can find in github/ultimaker repo or googling) 4. remove jammed material and put everything back together. What is the diameter of your filament? The jam maybe caused by grinding of your filament if the friction between your filament and bowden tube is to much. best, XJ

Hi friends, Please help! I cannot make my settings in the customized Marlin firmware work. Here's my story: I'm using a UM2. I was going to change the FILAMENT_FORWARD_LENGTH parameter to make the fast forward length shorter, otherwise I found the filament was reaching the nozzle at a very high speed, which constantly causes heavy filament grindings. So I download the source code from the official github: ultimaker2marlin, found the file UltiLCD2_menu_material.h and changed the FILAMENT_FORWARD_LENGTH in the file from (FILAMENT_BOWDEN_LENGTH - 50) to (FILAMENT_BOWDEN_LENGTH - 100) where FILAMENT_BOWDEN_LENGTH = 705. Then I compiled the firmware by following the knowledge I've got so far: with Arduino, commenting out the ISR(TWI_vect){...} part in twi.c, compiled it and uploaded the .hex file by using Cura 15.04. I was sure for the successful firmware update because I saw the version changed to my customized one in the LCD menu. But the forward length seemed not changed at all. Grinding happened as before. So I changed FILAMENT_FORWARD_LENGTH to (Bowden_length - 150). Again, no visible difference was shown. The fast filament feeding still went like nothing was changed. To understand what was happening I used G-code G1 E-100 in printrun, and measured the outgoing filament. I found the outgoing length was almost 200mm, twice as it should be! I thought that might be the reason, perhaps every length was doubled, therefore even (Bowden_length - 150) were still longer than the actual length of bowden tube because of this doubling! I thought the reason for doubling was the wrong setting in the configuration.h: I found the DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT for extruder was 282, which I thought should be 125 or so since I had a φ8.1 feeder wheel (if I did the math right). Then I changed it to 125, expecting the 100mm feeding length instead of 200. But after uploading my changes, nothing changed. The G-code feeding G1 E100 (or -100) is still 200mm filament in output. So it turns out nothing have changed no matter how I was tweaking the settings in Marlin. So I'm totally confused! Did I did something silly? Does anyone use a customized firmware? Any clues will be appreciated ! Thanks! Best, XJ

Hi, I'm Chinese. So I can translate everything if you still interested in this one: Product Information: Name: T8*8*2 step motor with lead screw lead screw: diameter 8mm, pitch 2mm, lead 4mm, length 300mm motor: 42 step motor, Voltage 12~24V Current: 1.5A, wire length 50cm usage: ultimaker 2 3d printer accessory I think this one is suitable for your project!

I also got an error while loading. I'm using Yosemite too and Cura 15.06.00. Here's the log: 15/7/1 下午7:06:33.654 Cura[87124]: Cura Error 15/7/1 下午7:06:33.655 Cura[87124]: 2015-07-01 19:06:33.654 Cura[87124:3176673] Cura Error 15/7/1 下午7:06:35.286 osascript[87166]: Performance: Please update this scripting addition to supply a value for ThreadSafe for each event handler: "/Library/ScriptingAdditions/SIMBL.osax" 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.567 Cura[87124]: Traceback (most recent call last): 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.567 Cura[87124]: File "/Applications/Cura.app/Contents/Resources/__boot__.py", line 77, in 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: _run() 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: File "/Applications/Cura.app/Contents/Resources/__boot__.py", line 62, in _run 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: exec(compile(source, path, 'exec'), globals(), globals()) 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: File "/Applications/Cura.app/Contents/Resources/cura_app.py", line 8, in 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: app = cura.CuraApplication.CuraApplication.getInstance() 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: File "UM/Application.pyc", line 326, in getInstance 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: File "cura/CuraApplication.pyc", line 64, in __init__ 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: File "configparser.pyc", line 937, in __getitem__ 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.568 Cura[87124]: KeyError: 'general' 15/7/1 下午7:06:36.668 Console[87169]: Failed to connect (_consoleX) outlet from (NSApplication) to (ConsoleX): missing setter or instance variable