My project of a truly universal extruder

Good morning fellow reprappers,
I'm not very active in this forum, I'm one of those always lurking in the dark in search for answers and with little knowledge to contribute. But thanks to you and specially the Brazilian googlegroup, I've been learning a lot these years and I'm glad to say that I can finally pitch in and try to do things that might be useful to the community. I lack a lot of programming and software-related skills, but I'm very familiar with computer modelling tools; so, as an architect, what I really enjoy is designing hardware. And that's what I think is the strongest aspect of this community: people with different talents working together as a team.

So I'd like to share with you my most successful project so far: an attempt of a really universal extruder, one that you can use with 1.75 and 3.00mm filaments and with an adaptor for hotend quick swap:
[www.thingiverse.com]

It's a work-in-progress, but I'm sharing anyway so that we could work together on this.

Here you can see photos of the first prototype (this is the 2nd version, while on thingiverse you see a new one, improved with the hotend adaptor, of which I'll be posting photos soon):
[drive.google.com]

I'm sorry the info on the image is in portuguese, any doubts please ask.

Thanks a lot.
Regards,
LUCAS CORATO

Here is a video of a working prototype:
[www.youtube.com]
Please turn on english subtitles.
There are others on my channel, but still without proper subtitles.
Thanks
LUCAS

That's actually pretty awesome. I like it. Keep up the good work.

---

Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

Very nice and I like that you fix the subtitles, I watched one of your older ones and Google had some very comical translations unless you were really talking about lousy rocks!

Hahaha thank you very much, youtube's automatic subtitles usually suck...! But google may be right: this project maybe lousy but it may also rock!!!
Well, about it, I'm sorry I didn't post any more updates, but lately I could not dedicate much time to it, unfortunately.
The point I'm stuck in is making the hinged extruder work with the endstop for the auto bed leveling system. I'll have to leave that as it is for a while, but the files continue on thingiverse, so if anyone wants to perfect it, please feel free; I'd be glad to have more hands working on it.
For now, though, I'm satisfied that the interchangeable parts work very well, and this is quite a milestone for me. Changing the hotend and the filament without having to change the extrude is in my opinion amazing, even if you do that once a month or less. I've been printing with a second prototype for a week now along with a magma hotend and everything is working normally.
Thanks again, to both of you, for your feedback.
Regards,
LUCAS

My biggest problem is making all of the wiring interchangeable as well, my J-head will never come off my Kossel since it has dual axial thermistors that are soldered together and the wiring is ran through the extrusions.

Since I still consider myself new to this 3d printing world, I don't have much knowledge of hotend models and their respective mounts, that's why I usually call this extruder "universal" with the quotation marks.
I'm used to the all-metal hotends where you usually insert the thermistor into a small socket near the nozzle, so it's easy to leave the wiring far from the mount...
I have never used a j-head, although I know the model, but had no idea about these soldered thermistors. That may really be a problem...
Also, I have never built a delta, all I know is that the extruder carriage is quite different than in a prusa.
So yeah, this extruder might not be as universal as I expected...

Quote
lucaslucas80
Since I still consider myself new to this 3d printing world, I don't have much knowledge of hotend models and their respective mounts, that's why I usually call this extruder "universal" with the quotation marks.
I'm used to the all-metal hotends where you usually insert the thermistor into a small socket near the nozzle, so it's easy to leave the wiring far from the mount...
I have never used a j-head, although I know the model, but had no idea about these soldered thermistors. That may really be a problem...
Also, I have never built a delta, all I know is that the extruder carriage is quite different than in a prusa.
So yeah, this extruder might not be as universal as I expected...

Well this would not fit a delta as they are almost all bowden tubes due to the design and they can't handle much weight. I solder the wires to my thermistors because it is easier and I prefer axial thermistors because they are not as fragile as the others.

Edit: I guess what I meant about running my wiring through extrusions is that I usually tie up all the wiring pretty tight.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2014 03:30PM by tjb1.

ok got it!

Quote
tjb1
Well this would not fit a delta as they are almost all bowden tubes due to the design and they can't handle much weight...

On the contrary. The Delta has a setup nearly the same as this already.



While you wouldn't use the extruder part directly with the hot end, you can copy the male and female ends to put on either side of the Bowden connections.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2014 04:59PM by KingRahl.

Quote
KingRahl

Quote
tjb1
Well this would not fit a delta as they are almost all bowden tubes due to the design and they can't handle much weight...

On the contrary. The Delta has a setup nearly the same as this already.

800px-Delta-Pi_Extruder_Platform.jpg

While you wouldn't use the extruder part directly with the hot end, you can copy the male and female ends to put on either side of the Bowden connections.

I was referencing the original design.