Duet3 : 3-in-1 Printer Design Possibility
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Hello, I got the Duet 3 so I could possibly have it control 3 seperate platforms (only one at once, unless its possible to have 2-3 machines running in addition by using expansion boards)
My end goal would be to have a CNC, Laser, and 3D printer on seperate frames (maybe the 3D and Laser share a frame, etc)
ButI would like to know if this is feasible and would I be able run different machines that use different stepper motors, endstops, etc.
Basically use the Duet3 as a central hub/brain for all my frames and I run a single one at a time without needing to disconnect wiring or reflash the duet.
Are there examples and or guides for such a thing?
The reason why I say at least 2 seperate frames is because I most likely would want the CNC in a different room as it would likely be built on a much larger frame than the laser & 3d printer.
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The moment you're talking about a different room you might* be on thin ice, but it should be possible to wire up all the I/O for both a laser engraver and a 3d-printer and just switch out the config.g file to operate one or the other. (*I.e. CAN bus isn't a long distance bus, but with low enough speed and high quality wiring another room should be possible, on paper at least)
If simultaneous operation would be supported and when is probably one for the Duet people.
The big question is why would you want to? You couldn't have separate E-stops, one would kill all or not be an proper E-stop, maintenance when running etc, I would have independent controllers all day every day.
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There are many reasons why I would want to:
- Cost effective (less boards to maintain / run and more money to go sensors and expansion boards)
- Challenging / Fun
- Space saving (3d printer on workstation table, large CNC in another underutilized room taking up more space)
- Minimized maintence by not have 3 seperate PSU, 3 boards, 3 cases, etc
The expansion boards should allow for alternate endstops, sensors etc via additional IO ports for other machines and then the config.g would point to which one to use: (thinking maybe an expansion board per frame)
https://www.duet3d.com/Duet3Expansion3HC- 6 IO ports for endstops, probes, filament monitors and other sensors.
- 3 Thermistor/PT1000 inputs and support for 4 PT100/thermocouple inputs via the optional daughterboards.
- Support for a wide range of Z probes including DC42’s IR Z probe and the Duet3D Smart Effector for delta printers.
The seperate room would be more like: drill a hole through shared wall from workshop to garage and workshop. Workshop side of wall has 3d printer against it and garage wall has CNC printer up against it on other side, so most likely a 1 meter(ish) run from Duet3 main and Duet expansion.
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@Armontrout said in Duet3 : 3-in-1 Printer Design Possibility:
likely a 1 meter(ish)
that shouldn't be a problem at all
you should be able to as is today, use one function at the time. all configuration can be changed at runtime (not sure if there are some corner cases with un-configuring things, but software reset is always an option. no need to flash any thing to change function from laser to cnc etc in any case.
https://duet3d.dozuki.com/Wiki/Gcode#Section_M505_Set_configuration_file_folder might be of interest.
Edit: also if you don't need any I/O from the main board, then there is a Duet3 without stepper drivers in the works (Q3 at the earliest I think has been said)
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@bearer A Duet 3 main without steppers and IO sounds like the exact direction that we need to go! Everything Expansion based and modular! I love the idea!
EDIT: M505 sounds perfectly suited! Thank you for the suggestion.
M505 P"config"
M98 P"config.g"The first line changes the config file folder to /sys/config1 and the second one executes file config.g in that folder.
To select an alternative configuration, only the first line needs to be edited."So MUCH can be done at the point, seperate MACROS written per frame being used and then its as simple as point and click after you fine tune it. The more I learn about DUET, the more I am glad I opted for it.
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With the cost of a Duet 2 Maestro being about the same as a Duet 3 3HC expansion, I'd go that route for printer and laser instead of shoehorning it all into a Duet 3. And pick Duet 2 Wifi or Duet 3 6HC for the CNC depending on current needs.
But each to his own I guess. (The driverlesss Duet 3 is mainly intended to be used with external stepper drivers to accomodate servos with step/dir interfaces, but ofc the interwebs always finds interesting use cases)
