I think this print may be one of my favorite prints that I've ran so far on the ToolChanger. TPU wheels, Nylon CF15 spikes, and CPE HG100 rims. I expect to be printing MANY more of these wheels (12 currently scheduled).
Damn!. That came out so well. The interesting thing about the time lapse is that you just don't see the tool changing so it looks like black magic.
I'll create a post at some point to describe how I'm doing the timelapse. A quick summary is that I'm leveraging the GPIO on the Duex5 to a wifi-enabled ESP32 microcontroller. The GPIO tells the microcontroller to send a wifi packet to a wireless GoPro to take the picture. Then you encapsulate a macro to trigger a picture, and call it wherever you want. I found it best to take a picture when the tool was changing to prevent any overhead re-positioning the tool so it was not blocking the part being printed.
That would be super helpful. Also amazing work on doing the multi material wheels. Do the studs stay in ok?
If they don't, additional design could help if not already present; i.e. embed the base of the spike under other material to prevent fallout possibilitites.
This is probably my favourite tool-changing print so far, really showing off the material versatility - I've been wanting to do a showoff wheel part that uses a TPU tyre, with PA-CF rims/spokes that are supported by PVA, and an Igus-J260-PF printed bushing. Just to really show off and hammer home the potential of true material changing and huge huge range of versatile thermoplastics that are now available for FFF machines. I've had quite a few 'enterprise' type people at tradeshows try and compare/argue that the Objet machines do which can do some very impressive software defined multi-colour/multi-material is 'more advanced' or whatever. However what they are crucially missing is that we are making robust, functional, end-use parts out of production grade engineering thermoplastics at a fraction of Objet costs. This is what really excites me about FFF and it's multi-material future!
I created a macro which I call during TpostN, which is why the extruders are always parked when the picture is snapped.
The spikes did shred after some light use; they are embedded under the TPU, but the layers separated. I bet if there was more surface area on the spike that it would stay together better.
I absolutely agree that the combination of these high-performance materials is the future. I sort of feel like you're baiting me here, I've got spools of nearly all of those materials in my cabinet. I've never used PA-CF, does it adhere well with PVA?
Interesting to see the design. Thanks for clearing that up. Looking at the shredding, it does appear to have happened right at the edge of the flexible filament. I was thinking more along the lines of tucking that under the TPU, though the plug design is surely also adding strength. Something like this ....
