Calibration piece for 2 extruder/color printing
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Published on February 18, 2012
Description
This is a calibration cube with a pattern for printing on a 2 extruder printer and fine tune the extruder offsets and other printing parameters.
Instructions
There are 2 STLs. The ColorBase.stl is to be printed with one extruder the ColorPattern.stl with another. The Sketchup file has both pieces together each piece as a component.
Use Skeinforge to slice. The STLs are sliced separately. Make sure both objects end up in exactly the same spot and the skirt (if used) doesn't overlap with the object. Both objects have to be slices with the same layer height. The penultimate gcode has to be generated. Pass the penultimte gcode file names for the base and the pattern to the addcolor.pl script as the first two parameters, and the names of the files with gcode for switching to the secondary extruder and back as the 3rd and 4th parameters. The merged gcode is printed to stdout (the comments are stripped and it should be ready for printing).
There are more details on the mod for the printer here:
thingiverse.com/thing:16523
The pictures show the results of printing at 50mm/sec, 0.5mm nozzles.
PLA: orange/transparent(natural) and red/blue pieces
ABS: black/white(natural)
The video for printing one of the ABS pieces is here:
youtu.be/GVVmdrmvYq8
Use Skeinforge to slice. The STLs are sliced separately. Make sure both objects end up in exactly the same spot and the skirt (if used) doesn't overlap with the object. Both objects have to be slices with the same layer height. The penultimate gcode has to be generated. Pass the penultimte gcode file names for the base and the pattern to the addcolor.pl script as the first two parameters, and the names of the files with gcode for switching to the secondary extruder and back as the 3rd and 4th parameters. The merged gcode is printed to stdout (the comments are stripped and it should be ready for printing).
There are more details on the mod for the printer here:
thingiverse.com/thing:16523
The pictures show the results of printing at 50mm/sec, 0.5mm nozzles.
PLA: orange/transparent(natural) and red/blue pieces
ABS: black/white(natural)
The video for printing one of the ABS pieces is here:
youtu.be/GVVmdrmvYq8
You must be logged in to post a comment.
laird
on
February 19, 2012
said:
Why use a script to merge the gcodes instead of using ReplicatorG to merge them? Is there an advantage to doing it that way?
dob71
on
February 19, 2012
said:
The standalone script was the easiest way to get it done. Essentially, it was a way to achieve the goal with the minimum investment.
IMO the right way to do colors is to slice the model from a file format carrying the texture mapping iformation, pick the color from the texture maping and apply only when printing the perimeter. There is no need to slice multiple objects in this case and everything is done in the slicing app.
License
Calibration piece for 2 extruder/color printing by dob71 is licensed under the Attribution - Share Alike - Creative Commons license.
More from dob71
I don
´t know how to use the script addcolor.pl . When I execute it, the console appears just a second and then it closes by itself. Could you help me?It's the first time that I use perl..
There is some info about using the script at the bottom of the page here:
http://www.okob.net/projects/r...
You might be beter off using the UI fronted for the script metioned there.
Otherwise, you have to start the console and call the script from the command line (I assume you are using Windows).
It takes 4 parameters (filenames):
- base object penultimate gcode file (object to print with extruder 0)
- color insert penultimate gcode file (object for printing with extruder 1
)
- file w/ gcode for switching from extruder 0 to 1
- file w/ gcode for switching back to extruder 0
The resulting gcode is printed to the screen.
For example, the following command will run the script and save the resulting gcode in mixed.gcode file: "perl addcolor.pl base_penultimate.gcode inser
t_penultinate.gcode color_on.g color_off.g
&
gt; mixed.gcode"