printing skirt loops for dual extruder
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Currently I am only using one of the two extruders on the print head. When I print, I make at least five skirt loops in order to ensure a smooth run. At the beginning of the skirt loop run, it takes some time for the plastic to come out (even if I use the manual extrusion function to extrude 10mm of plastic beforehand when the extruder is away from the bed), and then takes about 10-15cm of nozzle travel to get a stable line.
However if I have dual extrusion with one of the extruder doing support structure and raft, then how will the skirt loop of both extruders be handled? If both extruders take turn to print skirt loops, then only one of the two extruders will print immediately and the other extruder will wait for a long time. Then when the second extruder resume printing, will it become unreliable again because it has been idle? Considering my above comment where nozzle takes at least 10cm of run at the beginning to get stable plastic line.
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You are correct, and MatterControl has a couple of features for dealing with this situation. Wipe Tower and Wipe Shield are both used to prime the nozzle after a tool change. The wipe shield prints a wall around the object. It is essentially a skirt that is printed on every layer, alternating between the two materials as necessary. The wipe tower prints a block off in one corner, that serves the same purpose.
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Hi, how do I configure MatterControl such that a skirt is printed by each extruder?
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Unfortunately, that is not possible yet.
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@unlimitedbacon can you direct me to the code for skirt loops on github? Maybe I can contribute something on dual extrusion.
