Dual Extruder Upgrade, now heated bed doesnt work

(Printer details in signature)

So, I designed and built my own dual extruder assembly, seemss to work pretty well when testing using one nozzle. Now I am trying to get both hot ends to work, to do so I read that defining your motherboard as board 36 and editing the line that says number of extruders to 2 instead of 1 should do it. But now even though the printer thinks it has a heated bed, it refuses to heat, the led on the ramps board doesnt even light to indicate that pin is recieve any power even when there is a set temp and the printer claims "heating bed"

any idea what this is? also any cool dual color test prints?

Thank you in advance for any advice on the matter

---

If you need some help, or don't understand what I just said, feel free to send me a PM anytime

Printer: Prusa i3, 2 E3D v6 Hotends, Arduino + RAMPS 1.4 with a Bypassed 5V Regulator, 400w Insignia ATX PSU, Custom Designed Bowden Extruders

Are you running Marlin and if so what version?

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

1.1.0 RC3 Marlin,
sorry, thought i had that in my signature

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2016 03:28PM by DaGameFace.

The way I have this setup on my i3 which has 1 extruder, 1 chamber heater (ie. the 2nd extruder), Bed and Fan is to #define MOTHERBOARD BOARD_RAMPS_13_EEB (34) or #define MOTHERBOARD BOARD_RAMPS_14_EEB (44)

This enables dual extruder although some hosts can't really work with it (like pronterface so I use repetier instead). But you lose your fan since it would normally be connected to D9 which is now extruder 2 heater.

So buy a fan extender there are several available I can only recommend this one [www.ebay.co.uk] as it works, but there are others out there.

Install it on the servo pins. It works without changes to pins.h (I'm pretty sure on rc3 as they changed the way this file assigns pins to take account of switching to board 44 (EEB ) you connect your fan to this extender board instead. It also allows a second fan for whatever purpose you want - I use it as a Ramps cooler and turn it on when I start printing - but my ramps board is in the heated chamber!) which you control by adding M42 P5 Sx to your gcode where x is a value between 0 and 255.

Hope this helps.
Sorry for all the edits can't type for sh*t tonight.

Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2016 03:45PM by DjDemonD.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

WORKS! thank you!

I have my two e3d hot end fans harwired to the 12v rail on my atx, dont plan on a print cooling fan for a bit, going to wait till i have this dual extruder thing figured out. Also i print from sd so host compatibility doesnt matter

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2016 03:57PM by DaGameFace.

Glad it works let me know how you get on with dual extruders, I haven't tried it yet.

I have my hot end fans, on various printers, hard wired to the power supply too, but I am thinking about connecting them via some sort of relay with a timer as I don't really want them on when the printer is not printing and the hot ends have cooled down. I also figure I'll get more mileage out of them that way, fans are cheap but failed fans during a print isn't.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2016 04:31PM by DjDemonD.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Quote
DjDemonD
Glad it works let me know how you get on with dual extruders, I haven't tried it yet.

I have my hot end fans, on various printers, hard wired to the power supply too, but I am thinking about connecting them via some sort of relay with a timer as I don't really want them on when the printer is not printing and the hot ends have cooled down. I also figure I'll get more mileage out of them that way, fans are cheap but failed fans during a print isn't.

I have my hot end fans automatically controlled by repetier firmware. They come on whenever the hot-ends are above 50C and are pwm'd so I can dial them back to balance cooling vs noise. I just swapped out the fans for 30mm ones that are really nice. Good ratio of air to size & weight, but a little bit noisy at full speed. I'm running one at duty cycle 200 and the other at 210 which gives enough cooling to keep the heatsinks below 50C with pla (abs is less critical). I originally had both fans running off a single mosfet, so it was nice to get them on individual controls this weekend. Makes things a lot quieter when just printing with one extruder. I did an intake for the 30mm fans which I put on Pinshape and Thingiverse.

What board are your using James?

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

mega2560 + ramps. I made a mosfet expander to add another 4 fan outputs so that handles part cooling, 2 hotend fans and the electronics enclosure.

That's cool I use the fan extender module you can buy, that you can fit over the servo pins, this gives me 2 fans (if using 2 extruders/1 extruder, 1 chamber heater), or three PWM fans if using just extruder and bed. But more controllable fans might be a good idea. I think for £1.99 I will just use a 12v relay module with a built in timer to run electronics/hotend fans, figure I can connect 3-4 fans to it easily and then have 15 mins delayed run after printing stops.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions