Multimaterial printing was not invented by BambuLabs, however love them or hate them the AMS has change into the gold normal for a contemporary multi-material unit. [Daniel]’s newest Mod Bot video on the Field Turtle MMU (embedded beneath) highlights an open supply venture that goals to convey the ability and ease of AMS to Voron printers, and everybody else utilizing Klipper keen to place within the work.
The system itself is a largely 3D printed unit that sits atop [Daniel]’s Voron printer trying identical to an AMS atop a BambuLab. It has area for 4 spools, with motorized rollers and feeders within the entrance which have handy-dandy indicator LEDs to let you know which filament is loaded or printing. Every spool will get its personal extruder, whose rigidity might be adjusted manually by way of thumbscrew. A buffer unit sits between the spool field and your toolhead.
Except for the field, you might want to spec a toolhead that meets necessities. It wants a PTFE connector with a (reverse) boden tube to information the filament, and it additionally must have a toolhead filament runout sensor. The sensor is to offer suggestions to Klipper that the filament is loaded or unloaded. Lastly you’ll in all probability wish to add a filament cutter, as a result of that occurs on the toolhead with this unit. Positive, you might attempt the entire tip-forming factor, however anybody who had a Prusa MMU again within the day can let you know that’s simpler mentioned than completed. The cutter apparently makes this technique way more dependable.
In operation, it appears identical to a BambuLabs printer with an AMS put in. The large distinction, once more, is that this venture by [Armored Turtle] is absolutely open supply, with all the pieces on GitHub underneath a GPL-3.0 license. A number of distributors are already producing kits; [Daniel] is utilizing the LDO model in his video.
It appears just like the venture is properly documented–and [Mod Bot] agrees, and he experiences that the construct course of shouldn’t be terribly tough (properly, in case you’re the type of one who builds a Voron, anyway), and including the AFC Klipper Addon (additionally by [Armored Turtle]) was simple as pie. After that, properly. It wants calibration. Calibration and many tuning, which is an ongoing course of for [Daniel]. If you wish to see that, watch the video beneath, however we’ll spoil it for you and allow you to realize it actually pays off. (Apart from lane 4, the place he in all probability wants to wash up the print.)We’ve featured open-source MMUs earlier than, just like the Enraged Rabbit Carrot Feeder, nevertheless it’s nice to see extra on this scene, particularly one thing that appears like it could actually tackle the AMS. It’s not the one strategy to get multimaterial– there’s at all times tool-changers, or you might simply put in a second movement system and gantry.
