I’m trying to get my dual extruder set up and running on my 2.0 A350. The Z-offset cal goes off without a hitch.
In following the manual’s included instructions, I’m at the point where it wants me to load filament and do the XY Offset calibration. So, as the manual states, I load black filament into the left side and the provided white breakaway into the right until it’s oozing out of the ends. But when I tap ‘Load Filament’ into whichever nozzle, it just sits there doing nothing.
If I tap the ‘Stop’ button after that - since I know 100% for sure that filament came out of the nozzle when I shoved it in - and continue with the XY Test Print, it will go through the motions, but nothing ever comes out of either nozzle.
Am I missing something obvious here? The manual’s been pretty spot-on so far, but I’ve been fighting this for like four hours now and I just don’t understand what the issue is.
Yes to both. I’d show screenshots or whatever, but I’m locked into the calibration process that never finishes since it doesn’t actually print anything.
You can let it go through, you will have to calibrate it to any point…
What firmware are you on? - You could get to the settings if you unplug the tool head (in powered off state) and start again.
Do I maybe have the wrong cable or something? I was surprised that the module didn’t come with one, so I assumed that the same one I’ve been using with my single-extruder would work. (In case it’s not, I again would assume there’s some sort of error message.)
But you’re saying just let it go like it’s actually doing something and try and mess with it after? Basically?
1.18.1 didn’t work, and neither did the version right before it.
So, I looked for the oldest FW that supported the dual extruder. After some quick reading, I came up with 1.10.0, so I tried that. No good. So I tried the next one. Nothing. (I think when I started this morning, I still had 1.14 or something in that neighborhood.)
I was connected to the printer via wifi (using my laptop as a hotspot or whatever), and I could see console output when I moved things around in XYZ, but nothing at all happened when I clicked load on either extruder, using a total of 5 different FW files. No console output, no activity inside the tool head, nothing.
In all cases, the hot ends are getting hot depending on which one I select, and I can manually shove filament through it, plus I have full control over XYZ movement, but filament won’t load by itself. I think there’s a fan running inside, too, but it’s in a noisy room and it’s hard to tell.
That’s all I got for today. I’ll try something else tomorrow. Hopefully something works.
When I last tried shortly after the DX was new, the “load filament” did not work during the X/Y calibration for me neither. What I did was using the Control screen (nozzle section) and load filament there - like I would do before a print. Only then I started X/Y calibration and skipped the load filament step as filament was already in place. It can well be that they never fixed that bug in the firmware…
That said: Do not use breakaway PLA for X/Y calibration if you can avoid it - loads of problems with that. Pick two rolls of standard PLA of two colors if you have them.
I just was reading more about all the problems people were having with the dual extruder. It seems hot end heating, temp control, filament feeding, and every other possible function within the extruder has hit someone at some point.
I just read about the faceplate replacement kit. Mine did come with that kit, but I had no idea what it was for, as there were no instructions with it, but I do see one of the problems listed on the offical SM door kit page is
Spare parts for the Dual Extrusion Module filament sensor - Reducing the wear and aging on the trigger lever to prevent false alarms of filament runout.
I’m wondering if this kit could be the answer to my issue.
I probably won’t get back to it until tomorrow, but installing that kit will be my first priority.
It depends - if filament feeding and extrusion work in principle, I guess you are not (yet?) suffering from the teething problems of the DX. I received the repair kit, but yet only installed the door (which effectively counters the heat creep problem), but did not yet install the improved filament sensors, because after ~40-50 hours of printing my original sensors still work fine. Since you write you just started using the DX, I’d doubt that your filament sensors are already worn out. But I stand to be corrected!
Something you should however check is if your feeder levers pop open. If so, install either the wedges or the silicon pads of the repair kit. Mine seem not to be prone to popping open, but just to be on the safe side I installed the wedges.
After the initial frustrations with heat creep, I now really like the DX, it works really fine!
I forgot to include in my OP that it did seem to work the very first time I loaded it, but just for a split second, until it threw the message “Out of filament please load extruder” or something similar, like while I was in the process of loading it.
I only saw it once and, like I say, it was for a split second. It was hard to sum up an 8hr day in a comprehensible post.
The extruder should be able to load anyway, filament or not. The only need is a hot extruder.
If you toggle it over the terminal like preheat the selected extruder and then extrude by
M83 ;relative mode
G1 E20 F200 ;extrude 20mm with 200mm/min
Does it extrude?
There were a lot of firmware problems because of too less empty space on the touchscreen.
How much empty space do you have?
May get more empty space and install firmware again?
Using a USB cable, when I enter that command into the console, it say OK twice, but nothing happens.
As far as free space, the screen on the handheld says 4795MB free. I don’t have anything stored on the device itself - I use USB for everything.
Edit: I powered it down, flipped ends on the cable, and trying again, I get the following
G1 E20 F205
G1 E20 F205
ok
ok
others < active extruder mismatch target: 0!
others < clear extruder mismatch error!
OK, another update. Starting from scratch, I did the following:
Rollback to 1.16.?? (Arbitrarily chosen.)
Update to 1.18.1
Connect via console
Toolhead detected is the single extruder for some reason.
Even if I manually change to the dual extruder, it still won’t let me change the working nozzle either in console or using the point n’ click area below the console. I can change using the handheld, though, so it is there and is being detected.
There’s a mismatch between what the console is telling me vs what the handheld controller says, with respect to which nozzle is active and being worked with. Workspace says Left, handheld says Right. But know it’s Right, because that’s the one that’s hot. Console will not allow me to switch the working nozzle, but handheld does. Console/workspace doesn’t even detect that the Right extruder is hot.
No matter what, when I try to Load/Unload filament, those gears inside do not turn. It won’t feed filament in to either extruder, and to Unload, I have to open the front of the hot end to free it.
I’m going to try the upgrade/fix kit or whatever, but I honestly have to get this print going, so I guess I’ll roll back to the single extruder for the time being.
Seems like I have to go to support with this, as I think it’s more than a FW or settings problem. I think they sent me a bad module. What a disappointment.