Personal Please let us add extruders to existing machine profiles

[Kingsidorak 3]

I added Dual Extrusion to an Ender 3 Max which I already had optimized profiles for, but Cura won't let me use Ender 3 profiles on non-Ender 3 machines. Cura is outright refusing to let me add an extra extruder to the machine profile. I have gone, and tried to edit the text config files for the machine profile, and Cura keeps resetting it... JUST LET ME DO IT!!! This is a level of handholding that is going way too far for intermediate to advanced users. There should be a warning that comes up when people try to edit things that are not stock, maybe ask if they're sure, and then just do it.

[ahoeben 1,968]

You are going to have to accept that Ultimaker is the company that pays for the development of Cura, and they put development time into things that are relevant to their customers. For recent Ultimaker printers (ie: anything from the past 5 years), adding an extruder is not really an option. So Cura was engineered from the ground up with the idea that the printer definition provides a maximum number of extruders the printer supports. This has nothing to do with handholding, but with setting up an architecture for Cura that fits with the needs of Ultimaker printers.

 

I know that in theory you can mod an Ultimaker 2+ with a second extruder, but the number of people who will do that is so small that it is not interesting for Ultimaker to cater for that. They figure that if you have the skill to mod your hardware, you can also find out how to create a printer profile for your now non-stock printer.

[Kingsidorak 3]

1 hour ago, ahoeben said:

So Cura was engineered from the ground up with the idea that the printer definition provides a maximum number of extruders the printer supports.

Alright... How do I make my own Ender 3 definition?

Edited April 10, 2022 by Kingsidorak

[ahoeben 1,968]

You could have a look at the "Mark2 for Ultimaker2" definition, which basically does want you want to do but for the Ultimaker 2+ instead of the Ender3. You'll see that it "inherits" from the Ultimaker 2+ definition, references two extruder definitions (which both need to exist!), and also overrides some settings.