Now that the flower box project is finished, I am beginning the process of preparing my hyrel for two head printing. There are 2 things I have to do before I start printing:
1.) Set the zero position of the two heads. This has to be done so that the two heads are level with each other in the z dimension. When you print with both heads, if one head is higher than the other, the calibration will be off, and the part one head is printing won’t stick.
2.) Calibrate the offset between the two heads. Since the heads are next to each other, their positioning can’t be the same, so you need to set an offset. To do this, there is a special GCODE program that Hyrel wrote to draw one plus sign with each head. Then, you calculate the alignment using the Hyrel’s built-in camera.
Then, I’ll be ready to try a parallel print (i.e. printing 2 copies of the same object simultaneously – one copy with each head).
Now, I will be away for Thanksgiving until Sunday, so expect the posts to resume once Thanksgiving is over! Stay tuned for more progress with preparing my printer for dual extrusion.
John (aka The Mad Printer)
The Mad Printer 