They shipped my U1 today! So I’ve spent some time today trying to learn some of Snapmaker Orca. I was playing with the four parts of a toy and wanted to make each part with a different filament. I’m thinking it would be better to print each part by themselves instead of it changed print heads all the time. Is there a way to tell it to print one part then the next on a plate or do I need to print them each separate?
there is no harm in letting the printer show its abiltiies, i.e. print and change toolheads frequently. That is what it is made for. But you can also put the single parts on the plate and use the print by object function. They need to be separated, so that the toolhead does not collide with the parts.
Thanks!
If the parts are small enough that you can arrange enough clearance around them to print by object, then that is the most efficient way of printing, and I agree it makes sense to minimise toolhead changes – that reduces the percentage likelihood of a print failure. However, in summary, print-by-object is not practical unless the objects themselves are fairly flat.
My experience of this is in Cura rather than Orca/SnOrca, and I find Cura does not automatically allocate a sensible order of printing for print-by-object, and only recently provided manual control of that (by rearranging the object order in the list). You need to ensure the objects nearest the front of the build plate are printed first, so that nothing fouls the trajectory of the tool head during its XY travel from its home position to the print position and back, bearing in mind previous objects will be at full Z height.
A wipe tower will also be an issue, if you need one, because each object will need its own tower. Printing each object with one filament / toolhead eliminates the need for a tower, but will still need a wipe line per toolhead, and that needs taking into account with the trajectory.
Thanks! Great information. A lot to think about.