Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? Hey all, I have an older RepRap. I think it is the Mendel Tri-color (though I have never taken the extra steps to get more than one filament working). I looks something like this: [url=https://reprappro.com/documentation/mendel-tricolour/]TriColor[/url] My controller board is a RepRap Melzi v2.0 that looks like this: [url=http://reprap.org/wiki/Melzi]Melzi[/url] I recently got an additional 3D printer (a Taz 6), so thought I could now take some risks with my older one. I am interested in trying to upgrade it to a dual extruder. Apparently my printer model is set up for this. I'm trying to decide in advance how much effort would be involved in the conversion. Questions 1)Instructions: I found what looks to be the correct instructions [url=https://reprappro.com/documentation/mendel-tricolour/multimaterials/]here.[/url] It mentions getting a second controller board. Also I guess I would need to purchase the hot end etc. Is there an online store for this? 2) Software: the Taz6 has a slicer that knows how to work with multiple extruders. It is a customized version of Cura. Does anyone know if that Cura would work with this printer? Or would I need to use the RepRapPro slicer mentioned in the instructions? 3) Has anyone done this before and would be willing to share there experience? Thanks in advance Kevin T https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792253#msg-792253 Sun, 15 Mar 2026 16:23:10 -0400 Phorum 5.2.23 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,797733#msg-797733 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,797733#msg-797733 delloman General Thu, 23 Nov 2017 19:01:14 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792695#msg-792695 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792695#msg-792695
Spinoffs didn't seem to fare as well as the original project.]]> frankvdh General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 22:32:31 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792684#msg-792684 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792684#msg-792684
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dc42
Do you have in mind a free-for-all in which anyone can commit anything? That sounds like a recipe for chaos to me.

Picking up patches by 'git am', 'git cherry-pick' and/or merging all preserve the original author, so they stay visible.

Regarding the free-for-all: Teacup does this and it works remarkably well. The only rule is "Create as many branches as you feel need for, but don't touch other branches without asking". Then you have these contributions in branches, which are much easier to handle than remote forks. One can rebase, cherry-pick, view diffs, fix details by interactive rebasing, quickly switch between versions, all such stuff.]]> Traumflug General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 18:30:52 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792679#msg-792679 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792679#msg-792679
Do you have in mind a free-for-all in which anyone can commit anything? That sounds like a recipe for chaos to me. IMO you need either one person or three to be in control of what is accepted and when.]]> dc42 General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 17:58:25 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792666#msg-792666 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792666#msg-792666
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dc42
Perhaps I have been lucky to get good contributors so far.

Looking at the Github repo I see all commits were done by you, with only few exceptions. Perhaps we simply have different expectations on what "collaboration" means.]]> Traumflug General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 16:27:38 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792637#msg-792637 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792637#msg-792637
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Traumflug
Still that's not the kind of collaboration I tried to talk about. With Git, Gcc, whatever, contributors get a message "might break that other use case, please prove that working, then try again".

That's exactly what I have done on a few occasions. I don't accept changes that are obviously buggy or break the coding standards. But mostly, other contributors to RRF have submitted high-quality code that I haven't needed to change.

PS - I wasn't expecting to get such high-quality contributions. Perhaps I have been lucky to get good contributors so far.]]> dc42 General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 13:26:31 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792631#msg-792631 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792631#msg-792631
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dc42
Actually there is collaboration in the development of RepRapFirmware.

You sure had to write this :-)

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dc42
I've helped others to port RepRapFirmware to other boards (Due/RADDS and Alligator) and merged their changes back into my github master. Likewise when somebody wanted to add support for IDEX on CoreXY machines, I did some restructuring of RepRapFirmware to make it easier for him to add, and I merged his changes back into the master when he had completed them. I did the initial support for SCARA printers ...

... which pretty much means you do all the hard work yourself, right? Users dump some coarsely working code blob, dc42 fires up his code editor and gets it fixed and into shape. I mean, if you like doing things this way, I certainly don't want to stop you. Such centralized open source projects work very well for many companies. I even followed this path with Teacup Firmware myself for a while.

Still that's not the kind of collaboration I tried to talk about. With Git, Gcc, whatever, contributors get a message "might break that other use case, please prove that working, then try again". Maintainers do some whitespace fixes at most.

As soon as contributors deliver readily usable code working for everybody, projects start flying. That's the point where the fun begins!]]> Traumflug General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 12:55:55 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792621#msg-792621 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792621#msg-792621
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Traumflug
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deckingman
The Duet is fully open source and based on the original RepRap firmware.

That's certainly nice, but no help for collaboration at all. Yes, people do fork their own thing. And that's it. Zero efforts to get such forks back into mainline for the advantage of everybody. Collaboration is a lot more than just forking.

If you want to see collaboration, look at projects like Linux kernel, Git, Gcc, Clang, etc. People fork there as well, but after doing so they make sure their work gets back into the main repo and aligns with the needs of everybody ... or they get forgotten.

I don't want to point fingers or insult anybody. This is just how things work here.

Actually there is collaboration in the development of RepRapFirmware. I've helped others to port RepRapFirmware to other boards (Due/RADDS and Alligator) and merged their changes back into my github master. Likewise when somebody wanted to add support for IDEX on CoreXY machines, I did some restructuring of RepRapFirmware to make it easier for him to add, and I merged his changes back into the master when he had completed them. I did the initial support for SCARA printers in collaboration with a user who had one and could explain the requirements to me, and I am now doing the same for polar printers. So collaboration is not dead, at least in firmware development.

When it comes to hardware design, I don't think RepRap has ever seen the same degree of collaboration as with firmware, at least since I entered the field in late 2013. This is probably down to the large choice of 3D printer controllers now available, the expertise needed to produce a good design, and the costs of prototyping a complex controller board. However, the original Duet was a collaboration between two companies (Adrian Bowyer's RepRapPro and Think3DPrint3D), and the Duet WiFi and Duet Ethernet is too (Think3DPrint3D and Escher Technologies).

So IMO, collaboration in RepRap is not dead. But I can quite understand that there may have been even more collaboration in earlier years, when the field was less mature and there was a greater need for new stuff.]]> dc42 General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 11:59:05 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792595#msg-792595 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792595#msg-792595
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deckingman
The Duet is fully open source and based on the original RepRap firmware.

That's certainly nice, but no help for collaboration at all. Yes, people do fork their own thing. And that's it. Zero efforts to get such forks back into mainline for the advantage of everybody. Collaboration is a lot more than just forking.

If you want to see collaboration, look at projects like Linux kernel, Git, Gcc, Clang, etc. People fork there as well, but after doing so they make sure their work gets back into the main repo and aligns with the needs of everybody ... or they get forgotten.

I don't want to point fingers or insult anybody. This is just how things work here.]]> Traumflug General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 09:36:08 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792593#msg-792593 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792593#msg-792593
Now I know I recently joined the selling stuff brigade, (though its pretty small scale I'm not going to be quitting the day job anytime soon, I still do 3D printing more for fun than profit), but with Precision Piezo we're trying to make it so that you can either buy it, buy a kit and make it, or make it entirely yourself with open-source printed parts and a breadboard. Our product is still simple enough that you can do this. I wouldn't fancy trying to lay out a Duetwifi on a breadboard with through-hole components, though I'm sure its possible.

I have tried very carefully to keep the commercial side to my one thread, which is also for support. (there is a development thread but that's not for selling stuff, it's for sharing ideas/information).

I am also trying hard on this forum, not to jump in with "did you know our sensor is very accurate and here's the shop link" unless the topic is directly about z-probes and it is appropriate to mention it, or I am asked.]]> DjDemonD General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 09:04:31 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792591#msg-792591 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792591#msg-792591
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Traumflug
........................... People like @dc42 and @arthur convinced me that RepRap has no collaborative future.

Really? I'm a bit surprised by that comment. The Duet is fully open source and based on the original RepRap firmware. All the designs are done using Open Source software and are available for anyone to build their own versions. Likewise the firmware which is published on GitHib and anyone can fork it and "do their own thing".]]> deckingman General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 08:49:03 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792588#msg-792588 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792588#msg-792588
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frankvdh
What people are talking about is the *quality* of the board, not popularity. They *may* be correlated, but I suspect that price and popularity are probably more closely linked.

Most likely true. Also, as others outlined already, most of the boards are no competition to each other. RAMPS is for the cheap, Smoothie/Duet for feature richness and Gen7 for DIYers. Somebody looking for a $30 controller unlikely considers a $150 alternative and somebody considering plugging in a readily made board to be do-it-yourself unlikely watches out for a Gen7 thing. Still all of them have their customer segments. Some like to be proud of their soldering, some have fun wiring up the most fancy combination of sensors and actors, some are enthusiastic to keep the entire printer build below the $200 mark.

I'm a bit surprised this aggressive pushing of one board or another still happens, we all lost to the cheapo-chinese. People like @dc42 and @arthur convinced me that RepRap has no collaborative future. That's why I got pretty quiet over the last few years. Next development will be much more like a traditional business. Teacup Configtool as a Firefox-AddOn, Gen7 even simpler and more robust ... a granule extruder ... there's no shortage of ideas :-)]]> Traumflug General Tue, 17 Oct 2017 08:31:48 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792523#msg-792523 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792523#msg-792523
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kdtop
@deckingman, I'm curious about why you gave up on the 3 printheads. I suspect that calibration -- getting them all equidistant to bed -- would be a big problem. I mostly would want a 2nd print head to print dissolvable support structures. Regarding the offer for selling your other printer, I don't think that would work well. I live in the US. And if your RepRap is like mine, it would be difficult/costly to ship across the seas without damage. But I appreciate the offer. :-)

KT

Yes, getting them all exactly the same height in relation to the bed is a real pain. Then you also have to set the X (and Y) offsets really accurately which you can do in firmware but it takes of lot or measuring and trial and error prints to get it spot on. You also lose a lot of X travel - especially with 3 heads and the RepRapPro Mendle didn't have a huge amount to start with. The other problem is fighting ooze from the unused nozzle. The standard way to do that is to use a lowish standby temperature but then every time you change tool, you have to wait for the new one to come up from standby to active which slows the print time down a lot. Even with wipe and prime towers and setting the inactive tool to a lower standby temperature, I never could prevent the unused tool from scraping across the surface and leaving marks. A mixing hot end negates all of the above but brings a whole load of other issues which I won't go into here. On balance, having tried both approaches, I prefer the multiple inputs/one output approach but it's by no means easy.

Also, if you are in the US, then I agree that shipping it across the pond would add too much to your costs.

Ian]]> deckingman General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 16:17:18 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792519#msg-792519 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792519#msg-792519
I know I'm biased but only because I'm a huge fan of Duet - not because of any affiliation. Because dc42 gets a share of the profits, he is able to concentrate more or less full time on firmware development. So for example, when I first started using a mixing hot end, I needed to be able to retract all filaments at the same time. I mentioned it in the Duet section of these very forums and within a couple of days, the necessary changes to firmware had been implemented. I've seen numerous similar examples on the Duet WiFi forum in the last few months. e.g IDEX machines and Scara kinematics - the list just goes on. Then there are also the various add ons such as PT100 and Thermocouple Daughter boards, expansion for a further 2 or 5 steppers using the Duex 2 or 5 or external drivers, IR probe, Panel Due touch screen controller, filament monitor, smart effector, etc etc. I'll shut up now because I'm sounding like a fan boy.]]> deckingman General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 16:00:03 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792505#msg-792505 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792505#msg-792505
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cwaa
Here is the survey....
You can weasel word the results if you feel the need!

[reprap.org]

Without wanting to fan the flame-war, this is "This first list of boards are the ones that were most talked about on the Reprap IRC channel up to some time (March?) in 2016". What people are talking about is the *quality* of the board, not popularity. They *may* be correlated, but I suspect that price and popularity are probably more closely linked.]]> frankvdh General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:23:50 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792498#msg-792498 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792498#msg-792498
Ramps is adequate for most low/modest budget 3D printers, my microdelta printer runs off ramps/Arduino at 1/32 micro stepping and produces nice prints. It's cheap but adequate. Cheap cloned Arduinos work fine, but the super cheap ramps boards can have the wrong choice of mosfets (which get hot if inadequately specc'd), poor power connectors, traces that shouldn't be there such as between the microstepping jumpers, etc.. these are worth avoiding. Pay £15-£20 for a ramps board and buy from a reputable supplier and avoid all of this trouble.

Re-arm is a clever 32-bit replacement for Arduino mega, to save you a lot of re-wiring, runs Smoothie and is a big step up from 8-bit boards, with text file configuration (no compiling/upload issues), faster processors which can handle higher micro stepping, reasonable documentation and active development. That being said re-arm is great to upgrade your older machine which has ramps/Arduino, but the cost of it, if you were starting out from scratch, is the same as a complete smoothie compatible board like the Azteeg series, so if you are going to rewire you machine it doesn't make much sense.

Duet is a premium product, its clever design and features make it the obvious choice for a high-quality machine, why spend a lot on linear motion, motors, sensors, sturdy expensive frame, and wire them all up with the cheapest electronics going? I bought one despite being fairly against the idea for quite a while, now I have 2 and would buy a third one in a heartbeat. The forum is polite and helpful, David actively helps users to get the most out of it, including writing new features into the frequent updates, even for some quite obscure schemes, like CoreXYU /dual IDEX coreXY, deltas with extra axes to support moving extruders, it's versatile enough to do a lot of these things. We have filament sensors, emergency power failure resume, optional analogue probing for highly tuneable z-probes. Also, the newer boards are very tolerant of miswiring and shorts, by design.

Prusa's new Einsy Rambo looks great, but even if Ultimachine starts selling them, they will be expensive, and it's still an 8-bit board, which might struggle to generate enough step pulses to run 5 extruders, and 5 axes simultaneously at high speed. Of course you might not need to.]]> DjDemonD General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 13:56:46 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792497#msg-792497 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792497#msg-792497
KT]]> kdtop General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 13:42:51 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792495#msg-792495 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792495#msg-792495 this where an arduino + RAMPS + LCD for $25. That seems like a lot of electronics for not a lot of money.]]> kdtop General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 13:39:13 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792492#msg-792492 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792492#msg-792492 @ cwaa how do you equate popular too be better,, your way the RAMPS would be better than both boards which aint the case.]]> jinx General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 13:20:31 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792488#msg-792488 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792488#msg-792488 You can weasel word the results if you feel the need!

[reprap.org]]]> cwaa General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 12:27:16 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792451#msg-792451 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792451#msg-792451
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Dust
@kdtop

DC42 is a sales person, his answer to everything includes purchase of Duet electronics....

The melzi board does not have enough stepper drivers to control any additional extruders, so additional hardware is required. Most simple is to just add an external stepper driver and plug it into your melzi. Also needs a heater and thermistor control for a full second extruder. so also needs a mosfet and a analog in pin.

The original design of the Mendel Tri-color does use a additional melzi as a slave to the primary controller... all firmware is already done.

Moving to a duet basically means you will have to re wire everything and start again with the configuration, yes it will work, but it is a huge investment, time and money wise.

DC42 is a partner of Duet3D so yes obviously he has a vested interest. However, he writes all the firmware which IMO is the most advanced that you will find anywhere. To describe him as "Salesman" is demeaning to say the least.

For info, the very early reprappro mendels used Melzi electronics but later changed to the Duet. In fact it was Adrian Bowyer (the founder of reprap) who wrote the original firmware for the Duet. This is how the Duet was spawned - as a control board for the original reprappro Omirod and later version of the mendel to replace the Melzi boards. So configuration isn't a huge investment - it's a piece of cake as all the original stuff is still out there.]]> deckingman General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 06:05:19 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792447#msg-792447 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792447#msg-792447
I have a reprappro tricolour. It's slightly later than yours as it's fitted with the original Duet 0.6 electronics plus expansion shield rather than the Melzi boards that the really early ones used. I soon gave up on the three nozzle setup up and converted it to a Diamond 3 colour hot end but I still have all the original parts as well. Depending on where you live in the world, I could be tempted to part with it as a complete package for not much money. P.M me if you are interested. I'm in the UK.

Ian]]> deckingman General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 05:49:39 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792434#msg-792434 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792434#msg-792434
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cwaa
According to this forum in a survey in 2017, the most popular controllers were in this order, Ramps, Smoothie, Gen 7, Rambo and Duet in at no. 5.

Gen 7 at #3 - really? I find that hard to believe. Maybe you are thinking of the survey of messages on the RepRap IRC channel that was done up to March 2016. All that proves is that the creators of Smoothieboard and Gen7 were active on RepRapIRC and people like me were not.

Btw I think Smoothieboard was a good board for its time, roughly comparable with the Duet 085. But Duet WiFi and Duet Ethernet have raised the bar, and Smoothieboard 2 isn't available yet.

Amongst 8-bit boards, the best design I have seen is the Rambo. Its designers have made a good effort to protect the board against mis-wiring. It even has an isolated USB interface, to avoid getting a ground loop. However, the price of an original Rambo from Ultimachine isn't much less than a Duet WiFi. I don't know how good the clones are.]]> dc42 General Mon, 16 Oct 2017 02:59:39 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792420#msg-792420 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792420#msg-792420
Marlin is firmware (i.e. software designed for some particular piece of hardware). It's possibly the most widely used firmware (but lets not get into *that* flamewar!)]]> frankvdh General Sun, 15 Oct 2017 20:05:54 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792408#msg-792408 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792408#msg-792408
I'm a little fuzzy on nomenclature. Is "RAMPS" a piece of hardware or software? And Marlin is a software version, correct?

Thanks
Kdtop]]> kdtop General Sun, 15 Oct 2017 17:23:53 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792406#msg-792406 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792406#msg-792406
Thanks again everyone for the helpful replies!

kdtop]]> kdtop General Sun, 15 Oct 2017 17:22:26 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792396#msg-792396 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792396#msg-792396 cwaa General Sun, 15 Oct 2017 15:32:04 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792393#msg-792393 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792393#msg-792393 cwaa General Sun, 15 Oct 2017 15:27:05 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792382#msg-792382 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792382#msg-792382
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cwaa
The Smoothie Board is much better than anything else out there for the price!

You've obviously never used a Duet WiFi or Duet Ethernet :)]]> dc42 General Sun, 15 Oct 2017 13:23:04 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792363#msg-792363 Re: Instructions to upgrade to multiple extruders? https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,792253,792363#msg-792363 cwaa General Sun, 15 Oct 2017 09:48:57 -0400