Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

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MacBain68
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Joined: 19 Jul 2018, 07:27

Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by MacBain68 »

The Premium license of KISSLiver v2 unlocks the Purge Tower feature. Just out of curiosity: how do I use it? Do I still need a post processor to add a Wipe / Purge Tower to my GCode? If not, how do I use it? I sliced a Multi Color object yesterday (way too close to my bed-time ;) ) and the printer just uses the material from extruder 1, ignoring the other extruders / materials completely, doesnt print prime "rectangles" on the front aprt of the print bed (as Slic3R PE did), nor does it bother printing a Wipte tower alongside the object. In short: complete fail :(

Can someone give me a short explanation how to do Multi Material / Color prints with KS v2.0? I am running macOS so using PrusaPP.exe is not an option for me.
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pjr
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Location: Kamnik, Slovenia

Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by pjr »

What MM printer do you have?

You will probably need to add some G-Code for SNMM printers to control the load/unload.

Currently, I have profiles for the original PR Mk2/S + MMU and Mk3 + MMU2 which will be available on-line next week.

Peter
MacBain68
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Joined: 19 Jul 2018, 07:27

Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by MacBain68 »

Actually I do have a Prusa i3 Mk 2 / MMU 1.0 too :-) I was able to snipe it at an eBay auction for a reasonable price. But since I used all my expansive filament and switched to a cheaper one, I was just able to print smaller objects. As soon as the objects were bigger, the MMU extruder jams :-(

Great that you will provide the profiles for KS v2.0. I finally was able do finish my first successful print in single material mode without any clogging / jamming yesterday. BTW thank you for your great support on the dreaded MMU related jamming issue. You are the one who finally got me interested in KISSlicer. I run all Tuning Wizard, did some very sloppy measurements and finally - with an much better fitting Preload VE value - the model that failed to print for weeks at around 70% finished yesterday evening. I need to do some more tweaking (or not so sloppy measuring) to get rid of the stringing, but at least I can use my printer again.

In KS v2.0, KISSlicer settings / Printer G-Code / Select new ext & warm there is the following default G-Code:

; TOOL_CHANGE
; Post processors triggers
;DO NOT CHANGE THE FIRST AND LAST LINE OF THIS SECTION
G4 P0
T<EXT+0> ; Select extruder <EXT>
M104 S<TEMP>
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder position
; TOOL_CHANGE_END
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pjr
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Location: Kamnik, Slovenia

Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by pjr »

Firstly, it is not a good idea to use cheap filaments with the MMU; you can significantly reduce your chance of successful prints.

Secondly, if you can wait for a few days, you will be able to download the profiles, so stick with KISS 1.63 and my post-processor or Slic3r for a few days.

There are just a few things that need to be sorted out before I make them available.

TIA.

Peter
MacBain68
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Joined: 19 Jul 2018, 07:27

Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by MacBain68 »

pjr wrote:Firstly, it is not a good idea to use cheap filaments with the MMU; you can significantly reduce your chance of successful prints.
Yeah, I know and read on different forums that the MMU is rather "filament picky". I will try some more filaments from different manufacurers like colorfabb, Schmelz.Bar or 3dk.berlin. Right now I can print in single extruder mode using KISSlicer which is sufficient right now.
Secondly, if you can wait for a few days, you will be able to download the profiles, so stick with KISS 1.63 and my post-processor or Slic3r for a few days.
No problem, take your time, I will wait patiently :-) The profiles will be available on your FTP server?
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pjr
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Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by pjr »

Where are you located? It would help with filament recommendations.

I pay between €17 and €20 for 1Kg spools of PLA from my local supplier and they work very well with MMU, although they do need a little temp tweaking.

I also buy from PR direct; their filaments are not great, but do work OK in the main although there are some colours which are very bad. Fillamentum are also quite good once tuned in.

Peter
MacBain68
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Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by MacBain68 »

pjr wrote:Where are you located? It would help with filament recommendations.
I am living in Germany. The filament manufacturers I mentioned in my earlier post are the expansive ones (colorfabb especially). But if you have some more recommendations for me, please let me know.
I pay between €17 and €20 for 1Kg spools of PLA from my local supplier and they work very well with MMU, although they do need a little temp tweaking.
My "cheap" PLA is from a polish manufacturer (Pri-MAT 3D) and I pay 40€ for three spools (750 g each) which is ~14€ per spool. According to the Temp Tuning Wizard, 205°C is the right temperature for printing. Although I must admit, I wasnt very accurate and rather sloppy doing the measuring. And I learned that white isnt the perfect colour for those test prints because the bright white makes I quiet hard to spot any kind of imperfection ;).
I also buy from PR direct; their filaments are not great, but do work OK in the main although there are some colours which are very bad. Fillamentum are also quite good once tuned in.
I already considered ordering filament from Prusa as a last resort. I read somewhere though that the company Schmelz.Bar is the main (?) german distributor of filament from the same producer that manufactures the original PRUSA filament
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pjr
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Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by pjr »

Prusa's main supplier of "own brand" filament is Plasty Mladec : https://www.filament-pm.cz/

But PR is now starting to produce their own filament.

This is my local supplier: http://www.plastikatrcek.si/en/trgovina/filaments/

205 is about OK for most filaments with the MMU, but you do have to be more precise with the temp; there's only about ± 3 degrees variance otherwise you can get blockages.

The lack of consistency of diameter is also potentially a huge problem with cheap filaments/MMU.

Peter
MacBain68
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Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by MacBain68 »

@Peter
I just saw that you uploaded the profiles for Mk2 + MMU 1.0 to your FTP server. I am downloading the archive right now, I will give it a try this weekend.

Thank you very much!
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pjr
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Re: Multi Material Prints / Purge Tower

Post by pjr »

MacBain68 wrote:@Peter
I just saw that you uploaded the profiles for Mk2 + MMU 1.0 to your FTP server. I am downloading the archive right now, I will give it a try this weekend.

Thank you very much!
Hope it works!

Peter
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