Yup thats what the wedge is supposed to fix
My right was horriable.
But also think. If the temp is too cold. Then the extruder is trying to force a thicker (less viscous) slug of plastic which would cause more back pressure. Which makes the extruder skip.
So how many feeder issues are partially wrong temps???
Just a thought.
Roger that. I finally found it.
I’m re-posting the STL here for anybody still looking for it.
Block.stl (158.2 KB)
this is what i got from support when i asked why the calibration models wont work:
Mike (Snapmaker)
Apr 11, 2023, 10:39 GMT+8
Hi Peter Richards,
Thanks for reaching out to Snapmaker. I am sorry that you encountered such a problem.
The white material we are equipped with in the packaging is a material used for printing support. Please do not use it to print calibration models. If you switch to ordinary PLA material, you should be able to obtain good results.
Please feel free to contact us if there are further questions.
Have a nice day.
============================
question. does it say ANYWHERE in the manual for setup that you cannot used the included PLA for support to run the calibration models? Does it specify that you should use regular PLA for the calibration models?
i am going to run a test using “normal” pla and not support pla and see what i get. stay tuned.
This just keeps getting better and better.
In fact on page 39 of the dual extruder setup guide it specifically DOES say to load the breakaway PLA into the right side:
I have gotten the calibrations and the test model to work, but admittedly did not use the Snapmaker PLA, but some other PLA I had lying around. And there are plenty of reports of people succeeding. That said, the current firmware has a problematic bug that causes the print head trying to print 0.3 mm too high after automatic Z calibration - this bug came in at 1.15.19, and may thwart X/Y calibration. Two possible workarounds: A) do a manual Z calibration, or B) after Auto-Z, use the manual Z-Offset of the touchscreen to compensate. With that X/Y calibration should work with most PLA.
There is another problem IMHO, and that is that the test model is not waiting for the nozzle to reach 200°C after returning from Standby, which in my case was not an issue, but I can imagine that this may cause problems with some PLA brands.
So, as someone above said, not plug & play, but not too difficult to solve either.
Regarding the ticking noise: My right extruder did the same for a few seconds on first run, and looking closely at the extruder gear after opening the latch, I can see that the metal tube that guides the filament into the hotend has scratches where it nearly touches the gear wheels. My take on that: They try to push that tube as close to the gear as possible to minimize problems with flexible filaments. The gear slightly grinds against that tube, and causes the scratches. In my case obviously that made the clicking go away, enough metal being “shaved” away from the tube.
Maybe you’ve the same, maybe not…
That is right, and IMHO not helpful, but any PLA should work.
That support guy is right…and their dual extruder setup guide is wrong.
I just loaded Snapmaker white PLA in the right side and printed the test model. A world of difference.
When it was done the top and left squares didn’t breakaway so I’m redoing the XY calibration, but it’s 100% better than it was with the breakaway PLA in the right side.
No it dosnt thats just them covering that they made that mistake.
Got my dual extruder upgrade a few days ago. Finally got around to installing it today. Prior to physically installing the extruder I downloaded new firmware (V1.15.21_20230309). Once the new extruder was installed I powered up the printer and attempted the Level Calibration - the first in the three calibration steps.
The build surface was not in the correct position, the sensor on the bottom of the extruder module missed the front of the build plate (a stock build plate) but continued to push down so that the front left corner of the plate was now bending. I powered off the printer. I could hear some clicking and was afraid to leave the power connected.
After reading some of the comments in this thread, I decided to check to see if there was a new firmware version. A search for an update indicated that there was a new version - V1.15.21_20230303 - which seems like an “older” version than what was already on my machine. But I did the upgrade anyway and now it still shows the 20230309 version as installed and searching for a firmware update shows me the same 20230303 version.
After “upgrading” again, I tried to go through the calibration steps, but again, the sensor on the bottom of the extruder module just barely contacts the front edge of the build plate. Again, I shut off the power rather than wait for something to break.
Something seems very wrong here. My printer with the single extruder was working fine before installing this new dual extruder…
Not sure what to try next since I can’t even get the first of the three calibration steps to work.
Did you use the right holes? Not insulting your intelligence just different.
I did use the correct mounting holes. But even if I had not, the problem is that the module is out in front of the build plate.
I’ve sent email to Snapmaker support so we’ll see what they say.
Rick
That’s weird. Do you have the right printer selected in the firmware? Might be worth doing a machine reset and reinstalling the firmware then trying it.
Chris,
I do have the right printer selected. I figured out the problem and believe it or not, it’s a stupid mistake I made 2 1/2 years ago when I first assembled the printer. Boy am I embarrassed!
In a nutshell, when I mounted the Y-axis actuators, I mounted them using the wrong mounting holes. I was off by one mounting hole - which looks to be 1.25". So the actuator hung off the back end of the printer base plate a bit, and the front of the actuator was not as close to the front of the base plate as it should have been. I must have been really anxious to get the printer together after waiting for a year and just overlooked the assembly instructions (which I checked and they were right).
Why did this show up just now? Mainly because the distance from the extruder mounting plate to the center of the nozzle is larger on the dual extruder module by around 14mm than that same distance on the original extruder module.
Every print I’ve done since I built the printer has been shifted by 1.25" towards the front of the build plate. But amazingly, I was able to get the old bed levelling process to just work even though the front row of calibration points were very close to the front edge of the build plate.
I have fixed the location of the Y-axis actuators and have successfully completed the setup process for the dual extruder module now.
Dumb mistake! Mea Culpa!
Rick
Welp, hadn’t heard that one :). I’m glad you got it figured out. Super frustrating I bet.
Can’t wait to see your prints.
Its been weeks, I have the same problem. Support are now ghosting me…they refuse to respond to my emails. All they can suggest is to manually change the Z axis which I have done over and over again…in 0.02 increments with no result. Automatic calibration is a complete failure. As it stands I have a $6k paperweight…bought all the additional accessories. If I could walk up to their HQ and dump this on their front doorstep I would and demand my money back.
I’m glad I’m not the only person who did that. I was fighting with the original extruder dragging the edge of the plate at the start of each print about half the time, and with prints randomly either not sticking or sticking so well that removing the print also removed the top part of the print sheet. I wasted a week trying to debug that, when I noticed that there was an indentation in the top of the bottom plate, and the axes weren’t filling the indentation, and were sticking out one end, resulting in about a millimeter or two of Z-height difference between one end of the print sheet and the other.
Why Snapmaker’s software neither alerts about such problems nor successfully compensates for them, I have no idea, but it doesn’t. Anyway…
Sadly, the reason I’m in this thread is because I, too, have concluded that the dual extruder just plain doesn’t work. The problem seems to be a software bug related to temperature in the right extruder.
During the calibration, almost none of the white breakaway PLA is extruded at all. Manually feeding the PLA with the “load” button works fine.
After several failed attempts, I started looking at the screen more carefully, and realized that at the start of printing, it gives nonsensical like 180°C / 0°C or 180°C / 21°C or 0°C / 150°C, none of which are plausible target temperatures for PLA (or anything else).
For the X/Y calibration, I was at least able to get that to kind of work (though the print quality on the white part was still a bit dubious, which might have something to do with it being breakaway PLA) by doing the following:
That got me through the X/Y calibration. I wasn’t able to print the final calibration sample at all, because the white area was completely missing. Presumably it is the same problem, and I just failed to catch it at the right time and fix some incorrect temperature setting.
But basically, this thing is setting incorrect temperatures, and is therefore not extruding anything from the right extruder, and it is doing it with absolute consistency unless I manually intervene.
The device upgraded to what it said was the very latest firmware an hour or so ago (1.15.21). However, there are two newer firmware revisions available for download (1.15.22 and 1.15.23). No idea what’s up there.
Turns out that the real problem is that the models they ship don’t match the filament that they ship. Even though the instructions clearly say that you can use breakaway PLA for the second color, this is absolutely not correct.
The temperature for printing normal PLA is 190°C to 210°C. The temperature for Snapmaker’s breakaway PLA is 220°C to 230°C. The models that they print for calibration purposes print at 200°C, and that’s not nearly hot enough to melt the breakaway PLA reliably.
That’s also why it printed (kind of badly) for me when I manually bumped it to 210°C. The UI bugs showing wrong temperatures were just that — UI bugs — and were a total red herring. The problem was that breakaway PLA should absolutely not be used in calibration, at least with the way that the calibration process works currently.
This means Snapmaker absolutely should not be shipping this and telling people to use it for calibration. That’s a pretty serious mistake. And because this calibration is absolutely required for using the dual extruder, they really need to fix it, either by finding a way in software to let us choose the nozzle temperature for both nozzles on the fly (PLEASE) or by shipping all of us some normal PLA and a new instruction book.
Or both. I wouldn’t mind both. 
Seems I was lucky then - I did not want to open the breakaway spool packaging before I really needed it, so I did all calibrations with some other PLA right from the beginning - I had no real issues…
I guess Snapmaker needs to make the firmware hard-coded models and calibration GCode more flexible/intelligant, asking a few parameters before the job.
In the end, my main impression is that they ran out of time in the end and rushed the rollout, neither hardware nor software tested to the necessary degree. With software, patience will bring us there at some point - hardware: Not so easy… I guess they’ll silently ship improved hardware in the future - we’ll need to look out for that. If they ever offer the ominous repair kit, we’ll see… But if it is the rubber pads, I guess I’ll be a bit disappointed… As of now however I consider myself lucky, my DX seems to work reasonably well.
Until today I have been very successful in using my A350 for the last few years. I had so far none of the problems frequently mentioned in this forum. Just printing and that is what I bought the machine for.
Of course Luban lacks the professionalisme seen in the machine itself, the documentation and even the packaging.
After a long delay, I recently received my dual extruder but reading all this, I decided not to install and use it yet.
The soft- and firmware department seems to be manned by family of somebody in the management.
Replace them by professionals that also know how to manage software upgrades both in content as releases.
If not, Snapmaker should prepare for a mass claim and finally insolvency!
