Ultimaker 2 Dual extrusion

[pirmin-cowell 0]

i try to understand the issue for my personnal culture (i'm totaly newb in 3d printing) :

two heads carry to much heat so it will hard to contain a good temperature for pla, is that ?

 

The 2 hot ends are temperature regulated so they will always maintain the desired temperature, therefore having 2 next to each other shouldn't be any problem, the hot ends will probably just reduce the power output to maintain the set temperature as some of the heat lost by the hot ends would heat up the other hot end. The problem I believe is that the other parts above it shouldn't be hot, are heating up because there is inadequate insulation between the 2 areas and not enough cooling from the 3rd fan behind the heat sink to remove all the excess heat from the white connector and other components in that area. Without fixing these issues, the white connector, Bowden tubing and filament expand and deform causing filament jams.

 

[DidierKlein 729]

@Daid: Does it mean that Pink Unicorn is postponed? :-|

 

[Daid 303]

@Daid: Does it mean that Pink Unicorn is postponed? :-|

 

For a full release, yes. Sorry. However, this does mean I will most likely put out some public beta's soon. As there are some advanced options in there that advanced users will really like.

 

[mrwong 5]

Does anyone know what the white connector is made out of?

There are some good materials that are heat resistant and allow continuous operation at tho high temps.

Take a look at this (operating temp 572F)

http://www.ensinger-inc.com/products.cfm?page=product&product=tecasint+2011

 

[gr5 2,004]

It's glass impregnated teflon (PTFE). The part needs to do several things: handle high temperatures, be insulative (keep heat from moving upwards too fast) and also it needs to be slippery. Some materials such as ceramics offer too much friction.

 

[nallath 1,104]

oh and it needs to be somewhat sturdy too.

 

[dirkels 0]

For a full release, yes. Sorry. However, this does mean I will most likely put out some public beta's soon. As there are some advanced options in there that advanced users will really like.

 

Looking forward to it :-)

 

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

Good news for all those who wait for the UM2 dual extrusion. In an additional note to the heated bed kit press release it's mentioned that UM made huge progress on that subject and a release date of Q1/2015 is announced:

https://www.ultimaker.com/blogs/news/2014/09/20/introducing-ultimaker-original-and-a-heated-bed-upgrade-kit

Let's hope it becomes true and wish the guys at Geldermalsen good luck.

 

[izo2 0]

so they finally found a solution, someone from ultimaker team can confirm on this thread.

q1 2015 is far, but at least we have a reason to wait

 

[korneel 175]

i'm hoping someone from the ultimaker team can give us some insights into what the solution actually is and what direction they are thinking into?

 

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

I doubt they will communicate such details right now for several reasons. I guess the solution is at a quite early stage. And the competitors are not sleeping. The dual extrusion will be a strong USP for Ultimaker. I wouldn't take any risks.

 

[DidierKlein 729]

Daid comes to help the team and suddenly a breakthrough :mrgreen:

Your work is done now you can come back on pink unicorn :cool:

 

[Daid 303]

Daid comes to help the team and suddenly a breakthrough :mrgreen:

Your work is done now you can come back on pink unicorn :cool:

 

"breakthrough". Yes and no. We're heading in 2 directions right now. One is the "quick fix", just getting the current setup to work on dual-extrusion. Easy to upgrade on the current machines. 100% sure we can get this working with some adjustments. But this isn't fully ready yet.

And at the same time we're looking into radical solutions, but no guarantee that we can have that ready in Q1 2015. And most likely need to replace the whole hotend. This was what the hotend people where mostly working on. But it's getting into a state where a viable upgrade-kit becomes harder and harder. Due to all the changes they are making. They kinda lost track of the goal (upgrade for the UM2), and went beyond that (much improved hotend).

So we had a good meeting a while back, looking at the actual goal, looking at what we where working on. And that's how the Q1 2015 promise came to be.

So, lots happening here. We're not perfect, but stuff is happening. Sorry that it takes so long.

 

[pm_dude 27]

Thanks for the update.

I saw this 5 nozzles printer at the NY MakerFaire: http://www.ordsolutions.com/

Output was kind of ok.

 

[gblab 0]

But it's getting into a state where a viable upgrade-kit becomes harder and harder. Due to all the changes they are making. They kinda lost track of the goal (upgrade for the UM2), and went beyond that (much improved hotend).

 

So Ultimaker 3 it is. Can we already place pre-orders?

But joking aside, an improved hot end with dual-extrusion would be sweet!

 

[french-one 0]

Hello Gentlemen,

What are the news? I tested the Ultimaker 2 this summer and i found it pretty convincing. I'm just waiting for the second head!

Could we have a recall of th technical problem? Is that just the Over heat ?

 

[woofy 12]

I saw this 5 nozzles printer at the NY MakerFaire: http://www.ordsolutions.com/

 

E3D have the Kraken four nozzle head in beta.

 

[gr5 2,004]

I've been in the market for a 3D printer for a while - UM1 was too early for me but UM2 ticks so many boxes.

 

It's not called the UM1 for a good reason. It's still for sale. It's better than ever. It's now called the UMO+.

Think "coke classic". People still want it. Demand it. Prefer it.

 

[gr5 2,004]

One of the fixes for the UM2 dual extrusion appears to involve a fourth fan. I suspect Daid has been pulled to have the software do tricks that the hardware can't.

For example that 5 color printer mentioned above is very slow - it moves all heads outside the wipe shield while one head cools and the next head heats up. This would be a great feature to add to Cura. And faster/better PID temp control?

 

[ultiarjan 1,221]

I would not mind "radical solutions" for my UM2 .... prefferably make the dual nozzles easy swappable ... I'll be happy to get rid of the block/nozzle combi.

 

[meduza 191]

I was thinking yesterday about this and radical solutions, the main problem is the heat transfer, right? If one were to replace the heatsink with custom made water cooling block would that not be enough?

 

[3poro 9]

I was thinking yesterday about this and radical solutions, the main problem is the heat transfer, right? If one were to replace the heatsink with custom made water cooling block would that not be enough?

 

My guess is yes - and no. In the current design the heater block is in direct contact with the PTFE isolator and the latter is under mechanical stress. As the heater block is made out of brass, it conducts heat really well and can be considered to have uniform temperature through its (small) volume. Therefore, no matter how well you cool the other parts, the joint between the heater block and the PTFE isolator still remains pretty hot.

With 2 extruders, it is likely there will be more people building some sort of closed chambers. It is also likely the number of retractions will rather go up than go down. Also, one of the materials may well have higher printing temperature than PLA. In other words, if there are problems with the PTFE isolator now, they will get worse with dual extrusion.

I have improved cooling of the print head, but on the other hand I have a closed chamber. I have lost 3 PTFE isolators - one of the the old type, 2 of them the new type. Obviously there are (or at least were) problems with the isolator material, as the new type was introduced. I guess quite a lot of testing was involved. Maybe I'm a difficult case as I primarily print ABS in high temperatures and I have the closed chamber - but losing 3 isolators within a few months is crazy. I'm now trying a hybrid (PTFE + Vespel) isolator:

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/7024-teflon-spacer-replacement/?p=71524

It works fine, but I don't yet have enough mileage to assess its durability.

 

[LePaul 312]

I'm just curious, how many really use two extruders? I have the second extruder kit for my Ultimaker 1/Classic/Classic Coke (gr5) but since so few seem to really use it....and even fewer show videos or pictures of it in action, i've just waited to see the technology develop.

 

[3poro 9]

I'm just curious, how many really use two extruders?

 

A good question. Absence of replies to your question implies dual extrusion is not widely in use. Actually, I doubt anyone *knows* what dual (or multi) extrusion shall be used for until it's been out for some time. That's one reason why I think it would make sense to launch it even in rudimentary form fairly quickly - and see what people do with it.

Naturally usefulness of dual extrusion depends also on software support for it. If it was easy to use different filament for infill (bigger diameter nozzle + higher speed), I would already be interested.

 

[Anders Olsson 136]

I have a number of things I would like to test with dual extrusion, but need it to be fairly reliable to be interesting to me.

The ability to use two colors in the same object is interesting of course, but that is not the main thing I have in mind.

More interesting is when you think of for example having transparent and non transparent plastic in one print.

And much more interesting if you could use conductive and non conductive plastic.

For practical uses you would prefer much lower electrical resistance than the plastics you can currently buy, but I think such plastic can be made with the right ingredients.

Combine that with printed threads and printed springs and things starts to sound really interesting to me :smile: