Wipe and Prime Tower Fails, a possible solution

[francoisba 2]

Hello,

When I first met 3D Printing it was with a professional machine, equipped with a 3D printer head cleaner.

I was thinking about that lack of head cleaner when I first started to work on my school's makerbots then later on my own printer. Why desktop 3D printers are not equipped with this little brush ?

Recently, I discovered this project on Youtube

Maybe other projects already exist, but I would like to highlight this kind of work, and suggest that Cura allows advanced users to activate a new option.

While over extrusion for the Wipe and Prime Tower is a real issue after hours of print, when the tower falls down and the hole print is wasted, using a brush is the answer.

But Cura as another bug right now, which is the position of this tower.

Most of the time, the tower is off the bed, especially for big parts. Its position is never twice the same, or you just printed twice the same file !

So first, it could be useful to start with fixing the Tower position issue.

The fact that the Tower position is based on a square around the part is a huge waste of space !

Then, when the tower position is fixed, why not let user choose themselves this position, so they can actually replace the printed tower by a fixed brush.

Perhaps the solution already exists, but it's a dedicated gcode, or something requiring a strong technical knowledge to be adapted. This option is actually just about enabling user possibility to tell Cura where is brush (where is the Tower) and what size it is.

Then Cura still acts like printing the Tower. (or maybe has specific XY straight moves..)

I think it would be a nice update, don't you think ?

Let's talk about that..

Best regards

(Sorry for my english mistakes)

Edited March 4, 2016 by Guest

[neotko 1,417]

Other cura versions from the Old cura have options to at least edit the volume of the Wipe tower, that helps with adhesion.

If you wan't to add a wipe movement it's easy. Search an replace

Search for the sequence T1 or T0, then add all the wipe movements you need, with the x/y you need. And done. New Cura versions don't have dual extrusion yet, so there's room for improvement.

[foehnsturm 969]

I have some experience with various wiping devices. The major prob with Ultimakers is, that the nozzle is unable to reach an area outside the printbed. Therefore a wiping device not only occupies some print space but also has to be designed that it doesn't intefere with the build plate during the first milimeters of a print. Doable but challenging.

[yellowshark 153]

I like that, yes a good idea. I accept the fact that one would loose some print space on a UM but I bet the vast the vast majority of makers rarely use the entire bed. For UM printers as long as it can be easily removed so that if you need to use the extremities of the bed, you can, then it seems workable to me.