Thanks for the update Sanjay! Looks like you guys are doubling down on the BigBox which is exactly what I wanted to hear. My feedback on the update teaser, coming from someone who likes printing at high speed: - We're putting much more weight on the X axis than the current dual head design. Now the Y axis is swinging four(!) heavy motors around. I would bite the bullet now and design in 10 or even 12mm rods for the Y axis. This is an upgrade I would gladly pay for, the rod sag is already evident with only one extruder in the current design when doing mesh leveling. Get it done right in the 'no compromises motion system' philosophy of the BigBox instead of a trickle of updates or having to wait for a community mod. There are already tons of 'just good enough' printers out there and we came to the BigBox for a superior design philosophy congruent with what E3D has already established. - Please keep the hybrid bowden option for the second extruder for those of us who mainly want to use it for support material. It'd remove the weight of one less stepper. - Consider beefing up the printed X rod supports even further, or consider the X motor as structure idea presented earlier. There is quite a bit of flex in the current X rods mainly due to the plastic supports along with the 8mm rods. Doesn't take any effort to move the nozzle by hand. I think this flex effects quality when printing at speed especially when the nozzle is traversing over overlapping infill. Overall very happy to see evolution of the platform!
@Sanjay just to squish rumors, maybe post something like this on the website so that people realize you are just rejiggering stuff rather than going out of business. Doesn't have to be super detailed, just an explanation why stuff isn't for sale (since the main page tells you to preorder the BigBox)...
Those cuts outs can help for lighting among other things, but they seems not a necessity. I believe that qhwn going dual the X axis will bend less while the Y axis will suffer more (at leat one). This might be fixed by using bigger rods of linear rails in traverse. Something I would really love to look at once. But since this new mod is coming, all is postponed till it gets available
I was wondering even about going a step further and moving to rails, that also means getting rid of some of those pesky linear bearings and using nice maintenance free sealed bearings.
I've been wrestling with a friend's CreatrHS for a while now and have managed enough reasonable prints using PolySupport to want my own dual head machine (albeit one that is quieter, more reliable, quieter, less highly strung and quieter). This will get my money if it comes through before the end of the year (otherwise it's off to Barcelona). (eta - rereading Sanjay's post I could probably hang-on for a bit...)
This is exactly what I was wishing for when it comes to a dual head printer. I have seen a few other printers use this, RichRap even had one that he tested around the time the KS campaign was running. He had great results with the BCN3D machine. And a hint to Sanjay and the team, they released all the files for the project as open source!
Wow! Without wanting to sound (too) weird, @Sanjay I love you! Was getting a little nervous watching another thread here on the forum re BB parts not being in stock, and while the community is great, rumours and speculation left me feeling uneasy about upgrade/maintenance options. Can't wait to read about the full updates, and eager to see how much further I can push my BigBox :-D
I'm loving the idea of independently controlled heads. Would of course be superb if they could both print the same job at the same time! Unless I'm mistaken, those heads could be both direct-drive or both bowden-fed, just really a fitting decision and print head model choice. I'd personally go for two direct drives. Dual prints would be great with this as the second head could be parked over a potentially long bucket. This would get rid of the need for ram purge and would open up dual printing with volcanoes, which I came to the conclusion was impossible (to do well) with the current hardware. Really curious what this is ... ... and why this pipe seems to have been cut? ... and what the cutouts might be for ...
I may have an answer to this: I did the same at least for "Colorfabb Glowfill". There are several things involved here. You want to guide the filament properly through the lever so it is always centered on the drive gear. For this a tight tolerance is needed so you use a tube with an inner diameter of 2mm for 1.75mm filament. But if you use such a tube the whole way from the spool to the extruder you can run into problems as I did. Most filaments I printed so far are quite smooth, have a shiny surface, like Colorfabb XT, Edge. But there are others like Colorfabb PLA/PHA or the filled filaments. Their surface is rough. This roughness leads to an increased friction in the tube which is also higher the longer the tube is. The result is that it is 1. harder to pull the filament, which can lead to grinding and feeding problems and 2. in case of retraction the filament does not go back but the tube is pressed out of the lever (it is just pressed in there is no collet or anything else to hold it in place) which then leads to printing problems because of inconsistent feeding. As told I ran into those problems when printing with Colorfabb Glowfill, not with the PLA/PHA. I checked the diameter but it is normal compared to PLA/PHA or XT. It is not thicker! So the effect is just because of the surface... My solution was to cut the tube right above the lever just enough to be able to get it out of it when I wanna change it or not use it. That way the filament is properly guided but when retracting only the friction in the very short piece has to be overcome. If you look very close on the pic you posted you might notice that the short piece is not as transparent as the upper one which is I think because the short piece is a 2mm/4mm tube, the long is 3mm/4mm...
The blue blob looks to be cables that they tied up to keep out of the way or to keep from touching anything. The tube looks to be just the tube that normally goes into the extruder to lead the filament down into the hot end. They apparently haven't finished everything yet and are doing some fit and function to see what is all needed and if it works. Normally, the dual heads won't print at the same time. When the active head is exchanged the current one moves to it's home position and the other one moves to the ready position, then it starts printing. In-between, they cannot print. Check out the BCN3d Sigma printer, it uses this style of system. It uses linear rails, which is cool in my opinion. Richard Horne (aka RichRap) did a few videos on it and loves it, he even bought one.
I've cut my tube in the same way, makes it much easier to load filament as the short guide piece keeps it central on the hob. I've been trying to master Colorfabb brassfill which is incredibly soft and quite 'tacky so has similar issues to those Alex described, but even for normal filaments it makes life a lot easier.
I might try that, I have had some problems recently printing Colorfabb Glowfill. First it was fine, except the prints jumping to the left or right, now the extruder is giving me headaches and not properly well, extruding.
OK. I see. I've had similar issues loading, but have kind of settled now on just capturing the first 2mm of filament on the hob, then using the wheel to feed down into the waiting hole. I can see the sense in the pip to make that even more trouble free, but I'm feeling a little OCD about the dust getting into the open cut and making it's way down. Ahhh. I get the point now about the friction. Because the whole pipe moves away, you only have friction in that lead tube instead of the whole tube.
Love the setup of IDEX... very nearly bought the Sigma myself. This my kill me planning to upgrade to Duet as their are only 5 stepper drivers...