QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?  

RE: QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?

@towlerg

That is certainly true.  

RE: QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?

@towlerg

That is certainly true.  

RE: QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?

@towlerg

At first read - if you supply 100w to the extruder via USB-C, you'd also put the heavy lifting drivers in the extruder. Done properly, you could easily make any part of the extruder plug and play. Hot end, extruder motor, sensors, etc. Essentially - the concept is to miniaturize and put the Einsy extrusion functions on the extruder. And leave the positional and bed heat functions on the frame. 

The trade off is mass - adding a heater driver, soc/cpu for communication and sensing will weigh something - but these days, it wouldn't have to weigh much. Just dumping the weight of all those wires a Mk3 has may compensate - you might even reduce mass this way.

RE: QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?

Does anyone have any experience with pitstop and mutant? I'm wanting a quick change solution and wondering about reliability and performance of each. Also noticing pitstop 2 coming out soon.

RE: QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?

I don't have any experience (I don't even have a printer yet!) but I've been looking at the pitstop site.  The PitStop 2 looks like it has a ton of potential - I'd love to see how it develops!  But he posted the intro video on 11/17/21.  I don't know how quickly he turns out products, but it sounds like it's still a work-in-progress, and might be for a while?

That said, his intro video looks pretty amazing!

RE: QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?

This post is rather old, but came up while I was searching Google for an answer to the same question.

For anyone who ends up here the same way that I did, I found this mod, which seems like a very viable solution to the tool change question:

It is called the Mutant. Has anyone tried it?

https://whambamsystems.com/mutant

RE: QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?

Posted by: @paradoxicaloutlaw

...It is called the Mutant. Has anyone tried it?...

Apparently you haven't read this thread that you are replying too. smh

RE: QuickChange mod for i3 MK3/S/+ printhead?

PitStop certainly works, you just need to add some wire connectors to your extruder wires so they can be removed easily. Mihai himself recommends magnetic pogo pins but I use XT30 connectors as they have the required amperage and are also cheaper. The assembly itself isn't too difficult really and the model itself could use some updates, but its perfectly functional as it is. I'm using it on e3d o.4 and 0.6mm nozzles attached to the original v6s. I've found that using cheaper  (random) Chinese components are not great in terms of print quality. Too many uncontrolled variables. This works fine on PLA and PETG prints. If you're printing higher temp items like ABS, you'd probably want the PitStop printed out of ABS as it can and will soften your PLA/  (maybe PETG) and mess everything up. I wouldn't recommend it (ask me how I know).

That said, on his (Mihai's) Discord channel he's said he won't be working on the PitStop v1 anymore so that's up to you if you want to use it or not.  So any improvements - you're going to have make them yourself and maybe share with the community (gotta check if Mihai's happy with this or not - I think he's said before he's OK with it but I'd check with him again). For example I've been tweaking the housing so that the Pinda probe will be secured with zip ties rather than Mihai's screw-tightening version and have also tweaked the fan shroud slightly to avoid blobs potentially hitting it.