How to Reduce Number of Extruders  

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

I don't see an option in the FW to specify the number of tools or disable one. I guess you could just try with two and set it up as a dual tool machine? I assume you've just not plugged in the 'faulty' one and yet the FW wants to check it's complete? 

In the FW you can calibrate tools individually. Maybe that's a work around assuming you can skip that area of checks? I'm on the 5.1 alpha FW.

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

I appreciate the reply.  For the offset calibration (which is my main issue), can you do that per tool?  I only saw one selection and it begins the offset calibration immediately and wants to step through each of the 5 extruders - am I missing something there?  I would be happy if I could at least just get the first 4 working.  Right now the problem is using one extruder works, but when you use say number 1 and 2, the offsets are wrong and it caused extruder 1 to scratch my plate because it is lower than extruder 2.

EDIT: I should mention, I'm still on the 4.7.2 (I think it's .2 - it's NOT the alpha) - maybe the alpha has per extruder setup whereas the other doesn't?  And yes, I just do not have the last extruder connected at this point but it still thinks it should be there.

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

Can you go in to SETTINGS>TOOLS? In that menu you can select each tool and then in that menu is a calibrate option. Maybe step out of the guided setup and setup each part manually (if possible)?

RE:

I did not know about that particular menu, but do have it.   I looked and it allows some of the calibrations per tool, but not the one I needed.  I need the offset calibration which I assume requires all the tools to be able to run it so it can determine height offset relative to each of the other tools.

What makes this worse and why I tried the forums, is while I'm suppose to be receiving a replacement cable, Prusa's support HAS GOTTEN ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE, IMO.  Waited for over an hour to even to chat, then chatted for over an hour on something I had already diagnosed for 3 hours on my own (and could tell the tech was chatting with other people simultaneously because he had 5 minutes between simple replies), which they ended up agreeing with me, then said they'd send the cable and now crickets and cannot get any response about when it will ship and no indications anywhere that they even are going to ship it.  I'm beginning to hate Prusa from the way they are running the company, which is frustrating because I have 4 MK3S which are great printers and I think the XL will be good too.  Prusa really needs to get their operations game together.  Sorry, I diverted into b*tching because I'm frustrated as heck any maybe hoping Prusa at least sees how angry they have made people.

BUT I APPRECIATE YOU GuyH - THANK YOU FOR THE WILLINGNESS TO GIVE ME SOME IDEAS - CHEERS AND I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY. 🙂 

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

Hey Bruce. Shame it didn't help. You're not the first to complain about Prusa support going downhill. 

I find it odd that with the tool unplugged it still wants to calibrate it before it moves on. What about when people upgrade from 1 or 2 tools to 3 or 4? Not everyone wants 5 tools or to pay for them.

Last thing I can think I'd try if it was me (beyond trying to fix the cable) is to update the FW to the latest alpha. Then do a factory reset with the extra tool card removed and 3rd PSU disconnected. Appreciate you may not want to mess that much with a new and expensive printer.

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

What's "funny" is if I could buy the darn cable, I would spend the money in heartbeat just to get it sooner - I mean what's another $100 after spending $4,000+ and waiting 2 years, right. 🙂

I had the same thought on the number of extruders in that there must be a way to tell the printer - unless there is a specific firmware depending on number of heads (but I don't think there is).

I find your last idea interesting about resetting it without it installed and seeing if it "detects" it.  I probably won't remove the PSU yet, but might try just doing a factory reset without it. Dunno, you're right though in after waiting this long the last thing I want is impatience to make it worse.

On fixing the cable, what's funny is I would also do that, but I'm not sure what connectors are on it and would like to get new ones of those if I am going to try and rewire/fix it - I'm also not sure if they are going to want the old cable back to see what was wrong with it themselves so a little concerned on that side if I mess with it.

Bah, well I'll just get back to work and try to put this out of my mind until I get home tonight.  Thanks again. 🙂

On the terrible Prusa support, I wonder if Joseph is even paying attention ...

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

GuyH,

Your 4-star "Estimable Member" tag is accurate :-).  Let me start with a "THANK YOU * EleventyBillion" 🙂 ...

After our dialog, I decided to give it one more whirl, because as you were indicating, it did not make any sense.  So, I thoroughly cleaned the nozzles, bed, etc. and made sure no filament was in the extruders.  I then ran the Offset Calibration again and as it started running with extruder one, I noticed the tiny T# flipping around in the bottom and noticed it would go T1 -> T2 -> T3 -> T4 -> *T1* -> {...repeat...} (* for emphasis).  In other words, it was only cycling through 4 extruders, NOT 5 ... so I thought wow, ok it does only see 4.

Then after it did the 4th extruder it docked and pulled back and the screen went black, it rebooted and gave an orange screen of death.  This happened before AND I WRONGLY ASSUMED (yes I know what assume can stand for 🙂 lol) it was trying to move to the 5th (non-existent extruder I had removed).  In other words, I did not pay attention to the message.  Well here was the message:  Tool 4 offset %c: %.3f is out of bounds [%.3f, %.3f] (forget the exact % values)

So it was telling me extruder 4 was too far off on the offset calibration compared to what it expected.  So I took tool 4 off and removed the nozzle almost all the way, then put the nozzle back in "snug" but not too tight.  Guess what ... ran the calibration again and BOOM it calibrated!!

Then I tried to run a print using it and ran into issues with the tool filament sensor (not the side sensor).  I would start a print and then 20 seconds (guess) in it would all the sudden stop and say "Change Filament".  I fiddled around to no good end and then ran across this post where another user had this problem where no matter what they did the top (tool) filament sensor would act up.  Their solution that worked for them was to do a "hard reset" which involved re-flashing the firmware.  So I tried that, ran thru the entire calibration sequence for everything again and BOOM #2 🙂 the filament sensor started behaving - why, I have no idea.  I'll have to hunt down the post I'm talking about and update this post with it.

As I am typing it has been printing a two-color object, with one of the extruders being the one at issue.

So long story short, if you do remove an extruder, including cable from dwarf board, it does ONLY see whatever extruders are installed.

The other thing I take away from this, is don't get the printer, stay up until 3AM getting frustrated :-).  I still have the issue with the 5th extruder cable being bad and Prusa not responding to ANY of my 5 e-mails to them asking if they shipped the replacement after the chat, but at least it seems I have 4 extruders now (well I have not actually printed with all 4, but I'm positive for the moment).

Thank you again for your willingness to dialog - it helped and I appreciate you.

Have a good evening (or whatever is where you are).

Cheers.

Bruce

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

OK, well apparently you can only edit a post within a certain amount of time... so here is what I wanted to edit:

The post I refer to above is here: https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/original-prusa-assembly-and-first-prints-troubleshooting/filament-sensor-calibration-failing/ - 5th response down

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

Bruce,

Happy to play a small part. Glad you seem to have made progress and can at least use the printer now. Good work! 

Guy

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

My 5th extruder didn’t come with loading pins.  Some issues trying to get it to calibrate the extruders- it is an all or nothing.

What I did is unplug the extruder where it goes into the extruder head.  No power, the printer doesn’t know its not there.  Acts like a four head, did the extruder calibration with out a hitch.

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

Dude, we are ‘Twinsies’! I was up until 3am arguing with them over the fan testing failing issue.  They insisted that I send them video and pictures.  I felt I was trying out for Onlyfans. They wouldn’t do anything without “Proof of problem”.  Luckily, the forum here had the answer (remove teh print fan shroud and run the test.

As noted above, my 5th extruder is offline due to missing 4mm locating pins.  That convo went fine - after waiting over an hour for my 38 min wait…  and they insisted on pictures again.

On the one side, PRusa support has really gone downhill, but what I think is that they are getting more problems than they ever have before.   The failing print fan test is a great one.  All of these other gremlins are another.   What in the heck did their beta testers do???  Or on the other side, how bad were the beta units????

Posted by: @bruce-5

GuyH,

Your 4-star "Estimable Member" tag is accurate :-).  Let me start with a "THANK YOU * EleventyBillion" 🙂 ...

After our dialog, I decided to give it one more whirl, because as you were indicating, it did not make any sense.  So, I thoroughly cleaned the nozzles, bed, etc. and made sure no filament was in the extruders.  I then ran the Offset Calibration again and as it started running with extruder one, I noticed the tiny T# flipping around in the bottom and noticed it would go T1 -> T2 -> T3 -> T4 -> *T1* -> {...repeat...} (* for emphasis).  In other words, it was only cycling through 4 extruders, NOT 5 ... so I thought wow, ok it does only see 4.

Then after it did the 4th extruder it docked and pulled back and the screen went black, it rebooted and gave an orange screen of death.  This happened before AND I WRONGLY ASSUMED (yes I know what assume can stand for 🙂 lol) it was trying to move to the 5th (non-existent extruder I had removed).  In other words, I did not pay attention to the message.  Well here was the message:  Tool 4 offset %c: %.3f is out of bounds [%.3f, %.3f] (forget the exact % values)

So it was telling me extruder 4 was too far off on the offset calibration compared to what it expected.  So I took tool 4 off and removed the nozzle almost all the way, then put the nozzle back in "snug" but not too tight.  Guess what ... ran the calibration again and BOOM it calibrated!!

Then I tried to run a print using it and ran into issues with the tool filament sensor (not the side sensor).  I would start a print and then 20 seconds (guess) in it would all the sudden stop and say "Change Filament".  I fiddled around to no good end and then ran across this post where another user had this problem where no matter what they did the top (tool) filament sensor would act up.  Their solution that worked for them was to do a "hard reset" which involved re-flashing the firmware.  So I tried that, ran thru the entire calibration sequence for everything again and BOOM #2 🙂 the filament sensor started behaving - why, I have no idea.  I'll have to hunt down the post I'm talking about and update this post with it.

As I am typing it has been printing a two-color object, with one of the extruders being the one at issue.

So long story short, if you do remove an extruder, including cable from dwarf board, it does ONLY see whatever extruders are installed.

The other thing I take away from this, is don't get the printer, stay up until 3AM getting frustrated :-).  I still have the issue with the 5th extruder cable being bad and Prusa not responding to ANY of my 5 e-mails to them asking if they shipped the replacement after the chat, but at least it seems I have 4 extruders now (well I have not actually printed with all 4, but I'm positive for the moment).

Thank you again for your willingness to dialog - it helped and I appreciate you.

Have a good evening (or whatever is where you are).

Cheers.

Bruce

RE: How to Reduce Number of Extruders

We're the beta testers, or alpha in some cases if you're running the latest FW and slicer.