Various nozzle sizes - calibration and MT printing

Discussion in 'Tool heads & ToolChanger' started by Jai Stanley, Nov 24, 2019.

  1. Jai Stanley

    Jai Stanley Well-Known Member

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    Gents,

    I have fitted my tool changer with various nozzles:

    T0 - 0.25mm (hardened - will replace with plated copper next E3D order time)
    T1 - 0.4mm (nozzle x)
    T2 - 0.4mm (plated copper)
    T3 - 0.8mm Volcano (nozzle x)

    All have a copper block, PT100, titanium heat brake and high-capacity heater cartridge. I often print HT materials such as polycarbonate, abs, and the like and prefer to have the tool heads 'ready' for any material I throw at the without having to change nozzles or beware of temperatures; I also appreciate the fast heat times and stability of the copper/ti/HT cartridge combo. And, well why the hell not - the printer was already expensive!

    My question is two fold really: With the various nozzle sizes; is the calibration procedure likely to be the same as if I have 4 of the same nozzle; and if not how can I modify it to allow me to calibrate the tool head offsets? (I have calibrated Z height for each already).

    Secondly: dose anyone have experience of slicing multi part models for using various size nozzles/layer heights in the same print? EG: use the 0.8mm nozzle for infill and the 0.4 for perimeters; use the 0.25mm nozzle for preimeters and the 0.4mm for interiors. Use the 0.8mm nozzle with 0.4mm layer height and perimeters at 0.4mm with a layer height of 0.2mm; etc etc. What gotcha's am I going to be looking at? Do any slicers allow such? Printing two 0.2mm layers for every 0.4mm layer in the same file for instance?

    Many thanks in advance.

    Kind regards,

    Jai Stanley
     
  2. Amr

    Amr Well-Known Member

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    So for your first question, What I did was I printed a jig to center a USB microscope on the bed, then moved the tool with no print heads until it was dead center in my microscope view,mark down the x and y for this position then I select the first tool move it to that x&y then move it incrementally until it is again dead center then calculate the offset of the difference between the marked down coordinates and the tool coordinates at the same position rinse and repeat for the rest of the tools and then change that in the offset parameter in config.g. Keep the jig cause you will need it if you change nozels or dismantle the tool to fix a clog or what ever change you do to any tool.

    As for your second question I am not sure of slicing perimeters and infill at different layer height but you can print infill every other layer to achieve for example a 0.2 layer and an infill of 0.4 not sure how this would work out if you try it do share your outcomes so we can all learn.
     
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  3. Amr

    Amr Well-Known Member

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    I forgot to mention that the gcode for calibration is sliced for 0.4 nozzles so it will not work properly if ever for bigger/smaller nozzles.
     
  4. Ntesla66

    Ntesla66 Active Member

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    I used a brown and sharpe bestest indicator (.0005in) on a noga base. After being happy with where T1 thought x0y0 was I moved it (T1) to the center of the bed and set the indicator stylus up so that when the nozzle just centered on it the reading was zero.Noted the xy coord's from the web interface. Then grab another tool and microstep it till it reads zero, note the offset difference on web interface, grab another tool... etc, etc. Using the offset data gathered from all the zeroing over the indicator (mind you the indicator never moved from it's first position) you can add or subtract for the difference to modify your tool offsets in config.g . Hope this helps.
     
  5. Greg_The_Maker

    Greg_The_Maker Administrator
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    I have a mixture of .4 and 06 nozzles in our demo machines and it is possible to run the standard calibration.

    the point is to measure the x and y offsets, along with track height. technically the nozzle size doesn't really matter. However there are always limits to how far outside of normal you can go. With smaller nozzles it might be an idea to slow tihngs down so it can pump out the extra plastic.

    if you are intending on always using the same nozzles then i suggest reslicing the calibration code with the adjusted settings,
     
  6. Jai Stanley

    Jai Stanley Well-Known Member

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    Hmmm. I suppose it is fairly trivial to install new nozzles... I could put a 0.4 in each (I have a 0.4mm volcano nozzle around somewhere), calibrate with that and then print the file. That said; I'd have to re-calibrate z height that way. I'll try with differing sizes first.

    No-one answered my question in the main section: is there a way to post google photo's on this forum? It would make my life a lot easier..
     
  7. Greg_The_Maker

    Greg_The_Maker Administrator
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    Not that I know of.
     
  8. Amr

    Amr Well-Known Member

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    I would not go that route, when you change the nozzel you will slightly change the location of it in relation to the others

    Try clicking on the picture icon in the rich text editor and paste your google photo links
     
  9. Jai Stanley

    Jai Stanley Well-Known Member

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    @Greg Holloway Do you have the model so that I can re-clice this file by any chance? It'd be great to be able to adjust the nozzle diameters, layer height and extrusion multipliers - this is more tricky in raw g-code. Not impossible I'm sure but I have slicer profiles now, blah blah...

    Many thanks in advance!

    Jai
     
  10. Greg_The_Maker

    Greg_The_Maker Administrator
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    I think I used these ones. If not search on thingiverse.
     

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  11. Jai Stanley

    Jai Stanley Well-Known Member

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    Excellent! Thanks for replying so quickly.
     
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