Dual extruder tower feedback

When printing things that have only a small amount of a second color on only the top layer, building up a huge tower all the way up to the full height of the print seems like a waste of material. It would make more sense to add material to the tower only when switching materials, and lower the print head down to the bed as needed, rather than building it all the way up just so you don’t have to change the z-axis position while cleaning the extruder. Thoughts?

Also, could you update your product manuals to not say that the breakaway filament can be used for calibration? Calibration fails badly if you use the breakaway filament, because the extruder doesn’t get hot enough for the material to flow properly.

Also, could you make the calibration temperature be adjustable so that it can be done with any material, not just PLA? I opened a brand new container of PLA and breakaway PLA just to do this, and then had to go out and buy another container of PLA because the breakaway PLA won’t work, none of which I’m likely to ever use for anything other than calibration…

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lowering the head to the tower is risky, but it would be a good start if the tower stops printing when there is no second material in use anymore.

Had supports needed in the first layers, tower did its job, but continued being printed with the main material all the way to the top, which is unnecessary.

Dont know which model you are using, but the Artisan has the option to manually select the material being used for the calibration, or even manual input of the temperatur for each nozzle. Did the XY offset calibration with xPETG and PVA and set the temps manually.

It is an A350T.

There should be alternative options other than just a cylinder purge tower. I would like to see purge to infill option where the purged material is used as infill. Or a purge off the bed option similar to the Bambu. Id also like to see a no purge tower option and we can then use a secondary model or object as our prime tower. Either way theres so many other option that are more beneficial than just a cylinder.

Any other slicer…

The tower is an option and a known filament waster. You don’t have to use it.

how do I turn off the tower? when using PLA and breakaway, as soon as the tower falls, which it ALWAYS does, the resulting birds nest ruins the print every time…

It’s in the settings. I think dual extruder helper? You don’t want to get rid of it. Try increasing the density of it from l default to like 25mm3. More surface area helps it Stick.