Dear Hubbers,
I have a question regarding dual extrusion in simplify3d.
I am working with conductive graphene filament, like blackmagic conductive pla and protopasta conductive pla. The problem with conductive filaments is that if it is left in a heated extruder it expands. It expands in the nozzle and pfte liner that eventualy cause blockage and it clogs . I would like to only active the toolhead that prints the conductive graphene PLA to heat up at a certain layer where the conductive traces start so the risk of an clogged extruder is less. I added a picture of the expande filament. The last 20 hours i had no succes and have taken apart my extruder for so many times.
Does anybody know if this is possible with simplify3D. If so, how do i need to do this? If someone has a tutorial this would be great.
Thanks in advance.
Kind regards,
Lenn
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cobnut
2
Hi @physicalfile I’ve done this in Simplify3D using separate processes. Each process in Simplify can have entirely different settings - different nozzle, temperatures, layers, etc. To make a continuous print you “simply” set the first process to end at a certain height and the second one to start at that height. So, in theory, you could print with the left nozzle up to 5mm (or whatever) and then print with the right nozzle from 5mm to the end of the print.
The problem is, of course, pre-heating the second nozzle to be used and/or cooling the first one. If the second nozzle isn’t hot when it starts trying to print, you’ll get a jam, if the first nozzle is still too hot, you’ll get ooze until it cools. I’ve managed to get some decent results by including a temperature for the second nozzle in the first process and setting a fairly high retraction for the first nozzle, but it’s trial and error.
Alternatively, you could simply use the dual-extrusion wizard to set thing up, then manually edit the process for the second nozzle to put in extra temperature points. This will only work if you don’t include this nozzle in any pillar or ooze shield, and you’ll to let it heat for the first layer to allow for the purge, so you may end up with four temperature points - full temp at layer 0, warm (say 120C) at layer 1, then warmer at the last layer before the change, then full temp on the first layer of your second nozzle.
It should be possible, but it might take some experimenting.
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