Printer architecture
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You can use an two more external drivers on the CONN_LCD header with recent firmware
That would allow you to drive your 6th extruder.
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@PtitLu:
Is there any major differences betweens multiple motors on the same driver and map different motors? I need 6 extruders so I can't have two ∆a and ∆b motors.
I'd have thought that in simple terms a driver chip is capable of providing x amount of power so if you use two motors, each one would only have half the power of the driver chip available but I'm not sure if it works that way. No doubt someone with more knowledge than I will step in and correct me. Having said that, the driver chip may still be capable of supplying sufficient power for your needs to two motors. Before I instigated the second CoreXY mechanism, I had the extruders mounted on a carriage in such a way that they were passively "dragged around" by the hot end, so effectively one set of driver chips was supplying sufficient power to move both the hot end and the extruders (but I only had 3 extruders at that time, not 5).
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Something else has just occurred to me. Are you intending to use both heads at the same time or are you planning on having a carriage that will take either head and swap between them that way? If it's the former, then you'll have a large offset between the nozzles because the heat sinks on the Diamond are angled out at around 22 degrees forming a circle of about 75 mm in Diameter. So depending on what the second hot end is, you'll have to allow around 50mm for the lost axis travel. If you don't need to use them concurrently, then you physically swap between them and use one of the 5 Diamond extruders for the other hot end.
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I will use both heads at the same times, one for the main structure in PLA, and one for the support material in PVA.
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You can use an two more external drivers on the CONN_LCD header with recent firmware
That would allow you to drive your 6th extruder.
Is this compatible with the panel due? What's the standard use of this header?
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Yes it is compatible with Panel Due. The original plan was to support 20x4 text LCDs on that connector, but demand for that was very low and a requirement for more stepper drivers arose, so we repurposed it.
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Thanks a lot, I now have my printer general architecture.
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I don't like having 2 nozzles side by side (idle nozzle leaking, all those concerns).
I would make an IDEX like the SIGMA. Same construction - X Y on top, and bed moves down, but the XY is "regular" and not COREXY. Your diamond will dock to the left and your single support extruder will dock to the right. Requires 1 additional motor for the 2nd X axis. That should be exactly 10 motors.
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I don't like to have a moving axis motor so IDEX with a carthesian moving system so it's not the best idea in my opinion.
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I saw this thread http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?397,714601 about static motors for IDEX in a coreXY setup but I don't know if it's possible with a duet board.
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yes, it is called CoreXYU: http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?397,775415
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Do the duet board allow this kind of architecture (in the frimware I mean, without too much tweaking)?
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Yes, it's supported in the standard firmware build. See https://duet3d.com/wiki/Configuring_RepRapFirmware_for_a_CoreXY_printer.
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Thanks
