C-line
Posts: 47
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 12:52 pm

Newbie at dual extrusion

I am getting ready to try my first dual extrusion prints and have a few questions :

1. If I only need the 2nd extruder for a few layers at the beginning of a print, will the software automatically disable the ooze shield and stop heating the extruder after that point? If not, what's the best way to do so?

2. If I have a single STL file and want to use the 2nd extruder to print infill on a few layers only, how do I do that? Do I configure for "both extruders" on all layers, or just the required layers?

3. For question #2, how do I set my filament diameter for the 2nd extruder?

Many thanks for any help with this!
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KeyboardWarrior
Posts: 480
Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2014 5:02 pm

Re: Newbie at dual extrusion

C-line wrote:I am getting ready to try my first dual extrusion prints and have a few questions :

1. If I only need the 2nd extruder for a few layers at the beginning of a print, will the software automatically disable the ooze shield and stop heating the extruder after that point? If not, what's the best way to do so?

2. If I have a single STL file and want to use the 2nd extruder to print infill on a few layers only, how do I do that? Do I configure for "both extruders" on all layers, or just the required layers?

3. For question #2, how do I set my filament diameter for the 2nd extruder?

Many thanks for any help with this!
These are pretty good questions, I think you're a bit more than a Newbie :D


1) The Ooze Shield will continue but it will only be printed with the needed extruder. This will help thermally insulate and keep catching Ooze from the inactive nozzle so that generally is a positive. You can setup more processes if you want to get technical and disable the Ooze shield higher up, but this is generally not needed as the Ooze Shield behavior works really well.

2) You would need to setup multiple processes. For dual extrusion prints it's generally easier if you have different STL/OBJ models for each segment that way you can set it up using the Dual Extrusion Wizard, but this tutorial should help for setting up multiple processes for a single model: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/tuto ... f-a-model/

3) This can get tricky. Simplify3D only has one Filament Diameter slot, so you would need to get creative with the Extrusion Multipliers. Lets say you filament diameter was set to 1.75 mm, but your second nozzle used 3 mm filament. To change the extrusion multiplier for the second nozzle, I would calculate by doing the following.

Since area is pi*radius^2, pi would cancel and the extrusion multiplier needed would be scaled to be proportional to the radius's squared.

(filament diameter Other Nozzle/2)^2 / ((filament diameter Nozzle Used/2)^2)

(1.75/2)^2 / ((3/2)^2) = .340277 extrusion multiplier for your 3 mm filament nozzle.

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