Tom's HexTruder

Hi all,

I had some funny idea on cheap multicolor extrusion upgrade.
Is this going to work ? See attached.

The idea is:

Still one filament-feed motor needed.
Multiple filaments for which only one is forced to the pully by a camshaft kind of device
Hotend has multiple inputs, but only one output.

So.... just switch cam and after some small delay, the extruder switches colors....

How about this ?

Thomas

the camshaft is a cool idea, but i think the single nozzle will give you issues.

What stops the pressure pushing back the filaments that are not engaged?

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Hmmm.. good question.
I am still waiting for my first printer to be delivered, so i have no knowledge of the forces that are pushing on the melt.
However, I will give this some thought and refine the idea. Maybe a one-way clamp on each filament, like the clamp that holds the line on a sailboat ??.

Be advised in my idea that the camshaft can be operated by hand in a simple version.
In the ultimate solution, the switch will be done during Gcode, after which the extruder goes to a mini automated platform to extrude until the color is changed, after which it returns to the object to continue..... at least that is the idea too, not hinderded by any knowledge yet :-)

Please keep pointing out weaknesses in the design. This was my first attempt to visualize something likewise.

Thomas

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2012 12:06PM by Replace.

You mean something like this?

Cam Extruder

Ahh... the idea was not new.

Well, in mean time I added a second "exclusive/or" camshaft, which holds all filaments, except the one extruding.
They turn together so always one goes into feed mode, all other will be restrained against push-back.

Be advised, this design only has one hotend. No layer offset per color needed, so less Gcode tweaking required.

So far so good :-)

Thomas

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2012 06:35PM by Replace.