Yay it works!

Finally, after quite some time, I have a successful 2-color dice!

All the holes are finally full of plastic!  Tuning the GCODE helped dramatically.  In order to get the flow of filament correct, I took the Tool Change GCODE and modified it so that it prints a slightly longer line at the back of the printer with slightly more filament being extruded throughout the course of that movement.  That was successfully able to prime the head enough to get good flow when a tool change occurred!

However, I did have to post process the dice a bit, since there was some ooze from the extruder on the surface.  Interestingly enough, Hyrel has a fix for that!  I have a 3d printed piece that holds a strip of the same wire that they make wire brushes out of.  That piece was meant to install at the back of the printer so that the head wipes off every time it has finished drawing the line at the back that I specified with the tool-change GCODE.

Since all I have left to do is to install that piece, it is now time to embark on my next project!  Installing that piece isn’t really blog-worthy, so I’ll move on to the next thing (even though you will still see some 2-colored pieces pop up every now and then 😉 ).

I am planning to build this full size Kylo Ren Mask: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1853978/#comments!  This is going to be a great project, because it will allow me to tune another aspect of my hyrel that I have neglected for a little bit: support material generation!  Several of these pieces require support material, so this will be neat!  This project will also let me explore a few more finishing techniques with spray paint and a mystery layer smoothing chemical that I will reveal later (spoiler alert: it’s not XTC3d 😉 )!

Stay tuned as I embark on the next project.

John (aka The Mad Printer)