Purge tower per material
Hello,
i am a satisfied user of the 5 head XL. I love printing a combination of PLA and PETG for a solid interface support.
But sometimes i have big prints fail because of the purge tower. The PETG is not sticking to the PLA in the purge tower, and if the tower gets tall the nozzle can tilt the tower.
I would love to have an option for more than 1 purge tower, so can have a PLA tower and a PETG tower.
Please make something like this possible!
Regards
Jakob
RE: Purge tower per material
in my opinion, Purge tower per filament, is unlikely to be offered because all purge towers would either be lower than model height (minimum filament waste) or wastefull, if kept at model height.
if the minimum filament purge is used, there is a significant chance that the X axis and extruder will collide with the model as the build plate raises for purge. this will also restrict the potential locations for the purge towers
If full height purge per extruder is used, all of the purge towers will need to be tall and thin, to reduce waste build space, so they will tend to be more likely to get knocked over.
a better solution may be a Bambu like Purge chute, where the extruder ejects the purge material off to the side, or rear of the printer. in this case, there will be no issues with purge materials not sticking together, or purge towers falling over, however the external purge bucket would need to be larger than the purge block, because the purge material will not be constrained in an orderly manner
Regards Joan
I try to make safe suggestions,You should understand the context and ensure you are happy that they are safe before attempting to apply my suggestions, what you do, is YOUR responsibility. Location Halifax UK
RE: Purge tower per material
In the multiple extruder settings in Prusa Slicer you can select which extruder you want for the purge tower. It default is 0 which means it will use whatever extruder it's currently using. If you select your primary material it will always use that for the external perimeter of the tower.
So if your primary part material is PETG then you select that extruder and it will always use petg for the external perimeter and only put PLA on the inside.
This prevents your purge tower from failing. I've done probably a hundred prints this way without a single tower failure.
RE: Purge tower per material
I dont think it would be that wasteful. Imo if the purge tower is just the outer shell they are sturdy enough.
And it would be a nice option, because i do not care if i waste ~50g of filament on a 30h+ print. If a big print like this fails i could have made countless purge towers.
In the end it would be a nice addition, and the user can decide if he wants to "waste" some filament.
Of course if there is a another viable option like the bambu's i would be happy to use it, if it makes my prints more reliable.
Regards
Jakob
RE:
In the multiple extruder settings in Prusa Slicer you can select which extruder you want for the purge tower. It default is 0 which means it will use whatever extruder it's currently using. If you select your primary material it will always use that for the external perimeter of the tower.
So if your primary part material is PETG then you select that extruder and it will always use petg for the external perimeter and only put PLA on the inside.
This prevents your purge tower from failing. I've done probably a hundred prints this way without a single tower failure.
Was already using this setting, but the other way around.
(PLA was my main material and PETG for supports, so the i used a PLA extruder for the tower in the setting)
Will try it next time!