I think I’ve got a fair bit of extruder calibration issues resolved. Unlike my Ender 5 Pro, the Artist D cannot feed filament through reliably at speeds of 100mm/min. Once I lowered the feedrate to 40mm/min (& increased the temp 20 240C) I started getting some repeatable results. I still couldn’t get the extruded length exactly right by setting the extruder motor steps/mm, but I got within 2mm out of 100. I then adjusted the Flow Rate & managed to get the exact value.
Today was supposed to be about dialing in 2-color printing. As it turned out, there was more involved.
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When I tried to print this early in the day, it failed. The initial layer of white was lumpy & rough. While printing the red, the line was skimpy & didn’t adhere well. It seemed pretty obvious the bed level was, once again, an issue. This made a little sense since, last night, I took the magnetic base to the kitchen sink & washed+scrubbed it down. Although I applied it to almost exactly the same location as it was in when I removed it, apparently the bed level had changed anyway. Take note.
Another issue occurred when the white layers were finished & the red started: the red did not stick to the white very well at all. It was actually a bit funny. The red most looked like it was adhered, but it could be dislodged from the white by simply rubbing it with a finger. Bed leveling fixed this right up. However, it did give me an idea. If, for some reason, I ever wanted to print stenciling to be stuck to some other surface, I could maybe set the height of the 2nd nozzle just a touch too high. It has also made me wonder if it would be possible to print on things like wax paper to get transferrable prints.
After leveling the bed, the red skirt adhered better but was still skimpy. I checked the Flow Rate in Cura. Oops. It was set to 90%. I upped it to 110%. Much better. I think it can go up even a bit more but, as you can see, the result is not too bad. Take note.
To fix the lumpy/rough in the white I reduced the Z2 Offset in the printer’s menu settings from 1.2 to 0.7. I think it can even go down to 0.6. The Z Offset in Cura seems to apply to all extruders, which is unfortunate. I might be nice to be able to set separate values for each extruder in the slicer. Perhaps IdeaMaker has this?
To help keep the level of oozing down & keep the color transitions clean, I decided to use a priming tower. It really takes very little filament, & does provide a place for the printer to wipe the nozzle before moving to the actual model.
Overall, I’m happy with the print. Both colors are in my standard filament: PETG. I think some of the small stringing in the red could be reduced by dropping the temp from 240C to 230C or even 225C.
Crazy Flexible 3D Printed T-shirt Design - YouTube. This is a Swedish kid that is actually very interesting. He’s printing tshirts right onto the tshirt and then ironing them in. This old guy makes decals. 3D Printed Decals for a Hard Hat - YouTube
I’ve watched the Swedish guy b4. He’s done quite a bit on lithos.
The old guy seems to be going though extra work to make his crying angel. Vectorizing the image nd making it into an stl would be less trouble. Not sure how it would compare.
I have also found that the Artist print surface is too good. It really likes to hold onto prints and agree to lower the bed temperature helps. I am also experimenting with using magigoo to help with print release.
I’m finding the OEM print surface difficult to use in many ways. Certainly the over-stickiness is 1 factor, but I find the surface seems to be quite uneven, leading to things like test prints having good initial layer thickness in 1 area, too thin in another area, & mixed results in yet other areas. For example, I’ve printed a skirt that looks good in the front left corner, then doesn’t stick in the front right corner, then is too thin in the middle between the front right & back right corners. I have a PEI coated spring steel sheet on order from Aliexpress.
People seem to like that type of print surface. I still like glass, mine looks like it will last forever.
I got 1 for my Ender 5 & it’s been great: better adhesion than glass but releases easily, especially with Magigoo; heats up & cools down quicker; doesn’t require clips to hold it to the printbed.
I have to stay with my glass bed. The only way it will ever come off will be with a hammer and a chisel and I have no idea why it is stuck on to the bed at all. At first it wan’t and I clipped it on like everyone else, then it suddenly fused. I think my Ender 3 pro was created to drive me mad!
@Ender5r I have not noticed a problem with my z level switch. I agree bending the metal tab is a bad idea. I am away from home now but will look at it when I get home. The nut and crazy glue sounds like a lot of work for something that you should be able to align easily.
@irvshapiro1, you might find this interesting: [U]https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4840264[/U]. There are a few others, but I think I like this 1 best, at least at first glance. Hopefully, it will reduce the ooze that gets stuck in the wire brushes.
One caution: it appears the brush pockets for the Artist D & the Pro version are different.
UPDATE: 11aug2021: @Irv_Shapiro, after working with the new purge buckets for a while, I wholly endorse taking the time to print & install them. They really do avoid the large, sticky clumps of ooze in the metal bristles. When the head moves out of parking, it drags the nozzle through the length of the brush & leaves just a small amount of filament at the furthest end of the brush, and it is easily removed. The printhead assemblies never get stuck trying to move out of park because they’re glued to the bristles. I’m so impressed I’m looking for a way to add a bristle purge bucket to me Ender 5.
I have not noticed any issues reading from my SD card so far.
@irvshapiro1, I have something for you to check. I recently noticed, while once again setting the nozzle clearance on extruder 2 (T1), that the X axis rail seemed loose. If I lifted up on the extruder housing a bit, the whole X axis would tilt.
I looked at the 3 V wheels and found that they were not really properly seated in the channel. I found the eccentric nuts on the single V wheel on each upright. To me, it’s an odd setup: 2 eccentric nuts with a divider between them. Try as I might, I could not get a setting where all 3 wheels on a single upright were what I would called “well seated”. Can you check yours and, perhaps, explain how the eccentric nuts are supposed to be employed?
@Ender5r Your point is a specific case of a broader issue. The batch of new lower-cost IDEX printers will require additional enhancements to Marlin and Slicers to reach the quality of a single extruder. Now that the rebrand is mostly behind me I will be rededicating my efforts to device testing and video production. I hope to produce a series of videos about IDEX printers comparing the relatively new JG Maker devices with the more mature FlashForge devices.
As I have gained just a little experience with 3D printing, some things have some to mind, some of them brought on by dealing with an IDEX printer.
From now on I will not use the same nozzle to print filaments that require different temperatures. At first I naively thought I could print with PLA, then switch to PETG, then back again. Many of my issues with filaments have come from doing this. I can now see why people convert to swappable hotends. It also brings up something else. I am wondering if this “rule” can be modified with the Artist D. Since the nozzles can be swapped so easily, might it be possible to dedicate a set of nozzles to PLA, another set to PETG, yet another for TPU, etc? This might be a workable compromize.
Speaking of the Artist D, I’ve discovered a weak point when using Duplication Mode. In this mode both nozzles are in use at the same time. Thinking about this I realized that, for it to work properly, both nozzles have to be tuned exactly the same as far as bed clearance is concerned. There is zero way to have different Z Offset settings for each nozzle. This does not apply to multi-color printing. When printing multi-color, first 1 nozzle prints its assigned color and then parks while the other nozzle comes out of park & prints its assigned color. Since only 1 nozzle is active at any given moment, it is possible to have different Z Offsets for each of them.
The requirement have both nozzles tuned exactly the same for Duplication Mode points out a significant weakness in the design of the Artist D – the way bed clearance is done for the 2nd extruder. To say the least, it is, at best, rinky-dink. It requires loosening 4 bolts at the back of the extruder assembly then tighten or loosen a spring-loaded top bolt to raise of lower the nozzle. It should come as no surprise that having to loosen the 4 bolts intruduces significant “slop”, meaning that it is very difficult to get the clearance correct the 1st time. Repeated loosening of the 4 bolts, tightening or loosening the top bolt is usually required. Rinse & repeat. It’s a PITA.
It got me wondering. What if the support plate that holds the 2nd extruder could be redesigned so it can slide up and down by tightening or loosening the top bolt. Go futher: replace the top bolt’s head with a wheel, just like the ones used on printbeds (maybe a little smaller). Heck, borrow the whole concept used for printbeds. Put in a printbed spring to keep good tension on the assembly. Use 1 or 2 more bed springs to keep the sliding parts of the support plates tight against each other, removing any “slop”.
Take it even farther: use the sliding plate system for both extruders. The wheels at the top of each extruder could be used to fine tune how close each nozzle is to the bed. Additionally, it would make it possible to adjust each nozzle independently, even in Duplication Mode.
Of course, it is still necessary to ensure the printbed is parallel to the X Axis rail. That’s a given. But, instead of jumping through menues to find & adjust Z Offset settings, it would be possible to simply turn a wheel on the extruder that’s out of tune.
I no longer print waste lines to ensure good filament flow. Now, unless it’s something that requires a brim, I always print a skirt. While the skirt is printing I watch the quality of the line. Is it sticking to the bed properly? Does it seem too thick or thin? Do the adjacent lines have gaps between them? I will make live adjustments to the Z Offset while the skirt is printing to correct for any issues. This has worked really well for me.
I think all extruders on hobby price printers should have a mechanism similar to what most printbeds have, so micro adjustments can be made on the fly. I think it would make life a whole lot easier.
Anyone up for a project?
It still surprises me that IDEX printers in general are getting such a slow start out of the gate.
I’m completely bored with my Ender 3 pro after a couple of years. I think a good IDEX printer could get me interested again but I need one that works.
I don’t think the Artist D is for you. Getting both printheads aligned for Z Offset is not simple or easy. That said, if you don’t figure to ever use Duplication or Mirror modes, then the ability to use the firmware Z Offset for the 2nd extruder could make it useable for you.
I am too new here to judge roon’s motivation level and frustration threshold. Adjusting the second extruder was not that difficult imho, but there are other obstacles like bad extruder construction, the bed and Z-axes are again carried on those flimsy plastic wheels. It would certainly not have been possible to use that also for the Z-axis carrying the two extruders, but it would have been wonderful if they had made the pro version really something that deserves that suffix. I.e. rails for y (double!) and Z (also two).
And much more.
Fighting Ender3-boredom (I got an old Ordbot Hadron that has rested for the past two years but was always fun to tinker with - and it still is damn fast) and an alfawise U30 that will be upgraded to a pro-plus (rails on all 3 axes) soon - and two unfinished E3D Bigboxes (dual extruders on one carriage) would make me look at one of those delta printers and / or a COREXY machine. They have matured further than the Artist-D. That latter one is a banana product, it is expected to ripen on the shelf of the customer.