We had started discussing this in the MRRF 2016 thread but I thought it should really have its own spotlight. Mods feel free to rearrange as you wish or do whatever makes the most since. Here's the info that has been currently discussed. E3D unveiled their new gear reduction extruder, the "Titan" this past weekend at MRRF 2016. Which they had installed on both BigBox machines they had on display. I believe they are hoping this to be the perfect compromise between the agility of a Bowden setup with the power and reliability of a direct drive unit. They didn't go into too much detail on this guy, except to say a formal release video and more details were to be released very soon. Forum member Mike Kelly posted a quick video showing the Titan in action: member PsyVision posted the following find from e3d's online store: On the store page is also a link to the smaller stepper sourced for the Titan: http://e3d-online.com/NEMA17-40Ncm-D-shaft Looks promising to me, first impressions?
since its a gear reduction unit, can it keep up with large nozzle sizes on a volcano? and theoretically its as if you are adding more steps to a stepper motor what is the benefit? Do you actually gain quality?
From what was said in the discussion it can. They said they chose the 3:1 ratio wisely for those exact reasons. They even specifically mentioned the additional speed required during certain operations with the volcano such as "ram purging" that require very fast retractions after almost equally as fast purges.
First part, absolutely Second: Quality is a hard thing to quantify. You gain torque, which increases speed.
Sure, however, not sure if the weight loss would really be worth the torque loss in a DD configuration. The BB Nema 17's are rated at around 48n•cm where these are rated at 40n•cm (17% reduction) but while shaving almost 100g (30%) in weight per motor. Regardless, the sacrifice in torque could possibly require slowing down to avoid skipping steps, while speed/accuracy is what a lighter carriage usually gains. Only one way to know for sure though! Definitely let us know how they do
E3D is announcing a new product tomorrow. Hoping for details on the Titan on what the improvements will be to the BigBox.
tl;dr: Yes. There's two possible limitations, torque and step rate. Lets take these one at a time, but first a step back to get some applicable numbers. A Volcano tops out at about 45mm^3/sec, best case. With 1.75mm filament, that's a filament feed rate of 18.75mm/sec. With a typical hobgoblin, 200steps/rev stepper and 1/16 stepping, that's 2705 steps/sec, or 0.84rotations/sec. With a 3:1 reduction, that becomes 8100steps.sec 2.53rotations/sec. The torque curve of a 42BYGHW609 for example is nearly flat between these speeds. On the PDF below, you're looking at the region from 500pps to 1500pps (note they used a half step driver to make that plot). So, torque isn't an issue. The worst firmware around for step rate is probably Marlin. Marlin tops out at 10ksteps/sec, which is plenty for even the top speed 3:1 ratio case above so step rate isn't an issue either. https://docs.google.com/viewerng/vi...ables/42BYGHW609-Stepper-Motor-Datasheet1.pdf Yes, you gain quality. The quality potential from 1/16 step to 1/32 step is well documented, and actually a 3:1 gear reduction at 1/16 stepping would be better than a 1:1 reduction at 1/48 stepping due to decreasing incremental torque when microstepping. In contrast, gear reduction actually multiplies available torque rather than decreasing it.
A triumph of form over content.... I do hope new filaments come with datasheets and this doesn't degenerate into selling sugared water....
And its live! http://e3d-online.com/Titan-Extruder And of course, a shameless plug for my company as a US distributor. We have them in stock and they'll be shipped today if ordered before 6pm EST. http://www.filastruder.com/products/e3d-titan-extruder
Oh well, i will wait for the BogBox upgrade dual with this one since all my other printers use already good extruders comparable to this one. Even if i still fail to see if this brings anything to the BB as the carriage weight will be the same
Check out gregs post on google + "For everyone who backed us on Kickstarter you can login to the file server and download the new Hybrid X-Carriage. Look inside the folder called 1.1"