can this be done

just a thought i put this in here due to the stepper on the extruder i want to be able to change the rolls what the wire does im no good with electronics but for instance say i wanted to do some light engraving i could take my print head of and swap it for a small rotary tool well a stripped down rotary tool in a modified head to make it interchangeable for instance like a laptop battery for example you have contacts on the battery and the laptop when they touch power can flow, so for instance on the interchangeable head and the extruder would have contacts on each and on the x carriage plate
so with the right software and hardware was combined to do this my be light milling and learning positions so, you could engrave your printed work dependant on height using bed jigs.

i think there are a bunch of articles in the wiki on modding normal printers into hybrids. for pcb routing, milling etc ... i am on this path too. but i am way way delayed, i am still tinkering with how to operate my steppers properly hahaha.

eg : [reprap.org]

... I'm going the other way round - converting an old CNC-mill with exchangeable toolhead for milling, FFF-extruding, paste-dispensing, laser-cutting/engraving/curing/sintering and rotary axes and tables for mill-latheing and 3D-scanning ... and plug-exchangeable controllerboards too for switching the software for milling, 3D-printing or other tasks

But if you have place enough, try to get/build separate devices for different jobs, so you can optimize for mechanical issues, speeds and application dependant tweaks ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

yea true, its quite a bummer if you are going to mill something on the same machine but its doing an 8hr print ...