Can Anet A8 controller handle two extruders?

I have printed out a Chimera hotend mount for my A8 but then realized I didn’t even know if it’s board or firmware would supports such a thing.

Will it? Or will I be replacing everything but the frame to do this?

Thanks,

Presuming it still using this controller



Original firmware is closed source, replacements have been generated

controller has 4 stepper stepper drivers, not enough...

No support for a second hotend heater or thermistor.

limited memory

Basically this board cant be extended easily.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2018 03:25AM by Dust.

Thanks for the info.
Hopefully, even if closed, I can re-purpose it to another printer that is minimally endowed.
It looks like a Rumba or GT2560 is going into this machine

Thanks,
DLC

All,

I have a Tevo Tarantula kit and Rumba board I will be using with it to do a Chimera printer. A good deal came my way and I am intrigued by the roller wheels instead of linear "glides" to move everything around - I suspect the rollers will be far smoother than the cheap linear bearings that usually come with these cheap printers...
Anyway.
So I decided to upgrade my A8 with a E3Dv6 and a "Itty bitty belted" extruder on a direct mount so I can do flexible filaments. Same number of steppers, heaters, etc. so the hardware will work for me.

Between the time when I first started this project and now I have put Raspberry Pi's with Octoprint on my printers, and discovered that the Anet firmware does not have temperature overrun safeties built in. AND I will be going from about 80 steps/mm on the extruder to about 660/mm. Clearly, new firmware is a requirement. And speaking of the extruder, I will be happy to get rid of the current firmware's extruder "stutter" which doesn't give the nicest results.

The latest Marlin has a board entry for this board, so most of the setup will be done already.
As soon as I have the new print head and gantry installed I'll fire up the new firmware and see how it handles the X endstop being off to the side of the bed and see if the Anet A8 controller really does have digipots.

DLC

Quote
dlc60
All,

I have a Tevo Tarantula kit and Rumba board I will be using with it to do a Chimera printer. A good deal came my way and I am intrigued by the roller wheels instead of linear "glides" to move everything around - I suspect the rollers will be far smoother than the cheap linear bearings that usually come with these cheap printers...
Anyway.
So I decided to upgrade my A8 with a E3Dv6 and a "Itty bitty belted" extruder on a direct mount so I can do flexible filaments. Same number of steppers, heaters, etc. so the hardware will work for me.

Between the time when I first started this project and now I have put Raspberry Pi's with Octoprint on my printers, and discovered that the Anet firmware does not have temperature overrun safeties built in. AND I will be going from about 80 steps/mm on the extruder to about 660/mm. Clearly, new firmware is a requirement. And speaking of the extruder, I will be happy to get rid of the current firmware's extruder "stutter" which doesn't give the nicest results.

The latest Marlin has a board entry for this board, so most of the setup will be done already.
As soon as I have the new print head and gantry installed I'll fire up the new firmware and see how it handles the X endstop being off to the side of the bed and see if the Anet A8 controller really does have digipots.

DLC

Sorry to revive a dead thread but has anyone figured out if the Anet board has digipots? I'm in a situation where I need to control current to the E stepper and am trying to figure out how.

Thanks.

[github.com]

No it has a hard wired vref.

This board is junk.

Quote
Dust
[github.com]

No it has a hard wired vref.

This board is junk.

Yeah I saw were the test pins can be wired to drivers. That seems a little to much effort though. Overall this board has been pretty good considering it's my first but I think it's time to think about upgrading.

Nope, not enough capacity. And quite frankly, it isn't a very good board - My serial port has stopped working on my A8 and I am down to printing with the SD card only.

DLC