Dual Extrusion Kit, 2nd Extruder and Nozzle Non-Functional

[jimgreen 0]

The 2nd extrusion system on my Ultimaker is apparently not being recognized in Cura 13.06.4 (Windows). The printer previously worked without issue, and after upgrading for dual extrusion the 1st extruder and nozzle continue to function, but not the 2nd extruder.

Furthermore, I do not see any options in Cura for selecting which nozzle to use for a given part placed into Cura (For example, in Cura 13.03 I could select a part for a different extruder, and it would show up with the different color. This is how I knew which nozzle was used for a given color of PLA).

Some of the things I have tried, but to no avail:

-closing out & restarting Cura

-closing out & restarting Windows

-complete uninstall & reinstall of both previous versions of Cura and the latest

-reinstalling the Marlin firmware, latest (v1)

-verified that no voltage is being applied to the 2nd heater block with a multimeter, but voltage (heat) is being applied to the 1st heater block

-verified that all connections correct per install instructions

-tried making a test print using Cura's option with 2nd extruder as support (Support dual extrusion); instead BOTH support and the part materials come from the first nozzle.

Please help! Thanks!

 

[codemaven 0]

Hi Jim,

When I installed my second extruder I had the same issue. I had to manually rebuild marlin with #EXTRUDER_COUNT set to 2 in configuration.h.

I don't think this is documented, but it should be.

Regards,

Troy.

 

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi Jim,

I am looking forward to hear about your findings with CodeMaven's advice.

I will inform if Daid is aware of a bug and if a fix is nearby.

Thanks,

 

[Daid 306]

Did you configure Cura for dual-extrusion? (In the preferences or the first-run-wizard?)

 

[codemaven 0]

I set Cura to use dual-extrusion in the preferences menu, but I did not use the first-run wizard or re-load the cura firmware was I have a custom heated bed so I use my own build of Marlin that was originally generated with the Daid Marlin builder.

When I first installed the second extruder I tried both NetFabb and Cura and was unable to get the machine to respond to any commands for the second extruder. Setting it's temp didn't do anything and it always returned 0 as the temperature. I connected on Pronterface and tried sending a T1 command to it, which returned a message saying that 1 was an invalid extruder number. Anything for extruder 0 worked, but extruder 1 returned an error.

So I took a look in the Marlin configuration.h and found this:

 

// This defines the number of extruders

#define EXTRUDERS 1

 

Changing that to 2 and rebuilding marlin got everything working just fine.

 

Cheers,

Troy.

 

[jimgreen 0]

Thanks for the feedback. It seems simply updating the firmware through Cura was all that was needed to get dual extrusion working. Printed the robot ice .amf file and it came out great!

However, have not found any option for choosing the second color for another part. Instead the only thing that seems to work is the dual extrusion merge. What if someone does not want to merge the parts, but simply print something else onto the bed with a different color? A previous version of Cura seemed to allow that.

I have tried using the AMF Tools software to create a dual extrusion file (it seems this is what would be used for creating a file like RoboIce-dual.amf), but when it is uploaded into Cura the second color does not show up. That said, how did you make the RobotIce-dual.amf file to allow Cura to acknowledge the 2nd color material?

Cheers

 

[Daid 306]

The AMF files for dual extrusion can be saved from Cura after a dual-extrusion merge.