Is footprint worth it?  

RE: Is footprint worth it?

I mount my reels on a shelf over the printer and it works well, no prusa buffer.  most rooms are 8ft tall so it fits in without increasing the footprint

Joan

RE: Is footprint worth it?

Is there any minimal height which it requires to work without buffer? Cuz shelf is out of question for me ATM, but I though of using a desk mounted photography railingy from which I could hang spools, but I've seen on youtube some people trying mmu3 without buffer and they were experiancing issues with spools on desk, is this really solved with spools above printer?

RE: Is footprint worth it?

You need some way of accommodating the back fed filament without spilling over the side of the spool 

In my diagram there are two pieces of PTFE and the back fed filament ends. U between the pieces of PTFE 

RE: Is footprint worth it?

The two pieces of tubing in that diagram need to have room to separate, for the length of tubing that runs between the MMU and the print head (plus a little extra).   That's the retraction length.

I'm really liking that solution by the way... it's simple to build and more importantly: makes it easy to load filament into the MMU.  The original buffer is a pain to load.  Only drawback is that I have to manually rewind the spools to take up the slack, to prevent the exposed section from absorbing moisture (I have 4 spools sitting loaded in a dry box)

If you can't use a shelf or hang the spools off a rail, take a look at the Filamentalist auto rewinding spool holder.  It's a desktop solution without a buffer, that takes up far less space than the original MMU configuration.  Consists of a few 3D printed parts plus a few € of hardware.  I use one of them on my desk for the 5th MMU slot (the other 4 being fed from the dry box).

RE: Is footprint worth it?

I created this stupidly simple model to attach my MMU2 buffer to the wall with velco command strips.

I created this stupidly simple model to extend the bottom part of the buffer to make it easier to load filament.

I used this model to mount my filament spools to the wall above the buffer.

When I upgraded to the MMU3, I never felt the need to upgrade the buffer.  I actually thought it would be a step backwards for me, because it would be difficult to mount on the wall.

Since you don't have the buffer from an MMU2, you obviously can't use this.  But I'm sharing this to say, "you can set up the MMU any way that works for you."  You don't have to follow the suggested setup, or even use the buffer that comes with the MMU3.  There are plenty of 3rd party MMU buffers out there, free and paid, and plenty of designs to help you set it up your way.

Good luck!

RE: Is footprint worth it?

Posted by: @joantabb

I mount my reels on a shelf over the printer and it works well, no prusa buffer.  most rooms are 8ft tall so it fits in without increasing the footprint

Joan

 

I really like this. Sometimes, in our enthusiasm, we are prone to over engineering stuff and overlooking the simple solutions, this is a case in point.

Are your spools on stands or just hung on a bar?  I'm off to use this idea to retrieve office space right now... Once I have designed and printed some needless stuff to incorporate.

RE: Is footprint worth it?

at home i have 9 filament rollers, 4 for the MMU1 and 5 for the MMU3when away from home i have used a broom handle. but in that case it is important to feed the filament off the bottom of the reel to prevent the filament derailing when being retracted by the MMU

regards Joan