Hi, I'm Aiden from Core Electronics and today we've got the new dual extruder from lulzbot here, that's this one over here and we've also got the old version to dual extruder. We're going to look at Joule extruding what that means for makers and people that are interested in 3d printing. We're also going to have a look at what these two tool heads do and how they do it and finally we'll come to some conclusions about dual extruding and where it's going to take us with our 3d printing.

So first off let's cover off on what dual extruding is. These are both drilled extruders and what they do is allow you to use two different filaments at the same time when 3d printing. Now I don't mean at the same time you’re not depositing both the filaments at the same place at the same time. More so you're able to use two different filaments during the same print so that could be a multi-coloured print or a multi material print. Think rigid and flexible materials being used at the same time or interestingly one of our favourite applications would be to use soluble support material, meaning that you can print your supports using a material that dissolves when added to a certain liquid. There's PVA materials out there that just dissolve in water, so that's a interesting application for a dual extruder.

So, let's look at the similarities between the two tool heads before we dive into the differences. So obviously both tool has used the same gantry mount, so this is used to connect your tool head to your printer x-axis. So, the angle part here just slots in and then there's a small bolt that holds it from this hole, on each of them. So, it's the same bolt on the back. We've got two stickers with the serial number on both, which is similar but down the bottom on the version two we had the e-steps written in by-laws what staff, when they put this tool in together. On this one we don't have those each step and we'll get to why that is in a second. The next thing we'll talk about is the stepper motors. So first off, we'll look at the v2s or head and what they did with the stepper motors here and then we'll look at the version three. So, the stepper motors here will orient front to back and that was because the extruders gentlemen-oriented front to back. Now what this did was it made the depth of the entire tool had much greater, but it also put a lot of the mass on the front of the tool head, which we'll talk about in a moment was quite bad for things like print speed, as there were issues with wobble while the printer uses the tool. Have a look at the version 3 and what they've decided to do with it and we'll look here. Now you can see just the black NEMA 17 7 motors are in but instead of being mounted front to back they're about to side by side and they're right up against that gantry mount plate. Putting all the mass towards the mounting point for the tool head, which is quite important by doing that it removed that cantilevered sag effect. That we saw with the V 2 tool head and I think that's a really good design change for the new tool head

Next up, would be the extrusion cooling or the part cooling, so the version 2 tool had it used these 40 mil fans that you can see in there and they mount it this way so if it is blowing down through the fan shroud and goes straight on to the printed part. It's a good design and those 40 mil fans move a lot of air, so it always worked well and what we've seen on the version 3 is a very similar design there but instead they've gone with the more direct angled fan shroud, that blow the air in and this is borrowed from what we've seen on the more extruder and the single extruder 2.1 with lazlow. Which is when you get with your taz 6. So, that's another similarity I mean they changed it a bit, but it's also given quite a cool look and it's made up like wider but not deep part, so you can see that that tool head is quite thin compared to the v2 tool head and if you take the measurement of that that's about 120 ish mils to 75 mils, with the Julie extruder on. So quite been comparatively

And finally, another similarity being the point five-millimetre hot ends are used on both extrudes both the v2 and the v3 and similarly the both tool heads use the direct drive extrusion system. So, both are they've got the stepper motors mounted to the tool head and it pushes the filament down into the extruder to be extruded. But, you will notice that there's a massive difference between this weighted style extruder system here and this extruder system here, with the new aluminium Oilers, which we'll get to in just a second.

So that pretty much covers off on what is the same between the two extruders. Most of the hardware is the same it's the same set of motors it's the same hot bolt for most parts it's you know the same extruder idea. Let's take a closer look at what the differences are and why they are different.

So, this is the v3 tool head here and the first thing you'll know this is one of three things probably, you'll probably see this big black faceplate here if you look closely you can see that the extruded number is labelled on that front faceplate, either that or you'll notice that the gears are different on here or quite simply, it's the big fans on the side here. So, let's start off talking about why they've chosen to use this faceplate and what that means for us as makers. So, when you're slicing your model files using QR you'll be using curate 2.6 which is the new lulzbot edition QR you asked what extruder is using what filament which is quite important otherwise you might invert the filament choices and make a mess. So, in the old cure system with the v2 tool head it wasn't immediately apparent which to which extruder was which number, so you had extruder one and two, but you didn't know quite which was which. On this one it's quite clearly labelled and that's probably why they've chosen to go for that the next up the next change would be the difference between these herringbone style gears on the v2 these print 3d printed gears which obviously look quite cool and it's quite a like a thing the lulz would like to do is use as many 3d printed parts as they can, but then they've opted for these Spur gears instead. Which is quite a different thing we haven't seen before in any tool heads. Indirectly what they've done is or probably directly is they've, really nailed down on the e-steps value. So now with the herringbone gears there was a tolerance with that 3d print, which meant that every tool head had to be calibrated for the e steps value before it was shipped. Now the firmware update that you will install onto your TAS six or five when you install this tool head will update the ESS value for you and it will always remain constant. Which is massive for a liability, which miles Bot is and always has been known for with they're 3d printers. That's quite cool I really like the idea of using these Spur gears and they look good so that's always a positive.

The next thing we'll talk about, is this massive heat sink fan which we didn't see on the v-2 anywhere. What the v-2 did have if you can see it, it's quite difficult to see is one of these little micro blower fans. Now this was mounted to the 3d printed chassis of the tool head with one screw and it was purely directed at the heatsink here, if you can see that in there. Now the problem with that is right here, it was flimsy, and it fell apart easily. The screw went in to the 3d printed layers on the angle that you wouldn't have expected it wasn't very strong and as you can see it breaks easily. So that was a bit of a cry from the community I think, that was well coming off on. With this change so now, we have a shared heatsink for the heat breaks on both x screws and that big 40 mil fan blasting air straight down into it. So that should remove any heat creep issues that we saw with the v2 tool head. Next thing that you will notice is probably the extrude orientation. So, like we said before by changing the way these experiences were oriented we've done well might have done two things they've moved the stepper motors to the back of the extruder making the entire thing a lot thinner and putting all the mass at the back of the tool head. But also, they've made the distance between the nozzles what's that about 15 mils, on the version 2 tool head that was closer to 50 mils. So, what that what that meant was when you calibrated your slicing software for the tool head there was 50 mils between and it decreases the amount of bed space that you could use to create your models with because it was just so much taken up by this extra extrude.SO this second extruder couldn't get to the back of the bed. When the bed was moved all the way forward you still couldn't access it with the second extruder, so it was just deactivated in QR, which was quite a pain. So, doing this we've actually opened ourselves up to be able to use a lot more of the print bed I know that these tool heads ship with an extended nozzle wiping pad that you install as part of the installation process via v3 tool head which means that you can clean both nozzles at the same time and there's also an extender for the level switch at the start of the print little sequence. So, tons of changes there just from the change of the orientation of the extruders.

Finally let's look at the filament drive system so we talked about those spur gears and what that meant for the whole extruding system but let's look at these aluminium idlers, how they work and how they're different into the old-style ones on the v2. So, on the v2 you will apply attention to your filament, using this extruder idler and then the idler tensioner here. You'd move it with your thumb and lock it in and you could change the tension by turning these bolts and that was the same one almost, I think every extrude, used this same system. So yeah, it worked well sometimes people had issues where, these 3d printed parts might break but for the most part this system works well. What we can see on the v3 tool head is, these big aluminium idler tensioners and the bolts. Still the same idea there, where you can turn it to tension it and loosen it but instead of pulling them up in that weird and awkward way, it's far more ergonomic, you just simply pinch these two together and the filament will pull out. Same thing in Reverse remove tension, you feed the filament in let go of them and then turn that wheel to feed it down into the extruder just start extruding. So that's a massive change and I think it's a smart change from lulzbot there.

So, there you have it, that is pretty much a quick rundown of the dual extruder v3. Now I'm super keen to get this one going on TAS 6. So, I'm going to show you guys all the things you can do with it but will quickly run over all the design changes and what they meant for us. So first off the biggest advantage is easily the change of the extruders, so now the extruders side by side mounted really close together, rather than front to back, They changed the entire design of the tool head so now we've got all the stepper motors mounted against the mount point, meaning all the masses there and we don't have that sag effect in longer prints as you can imagine with all that weight at the front it would actually bend and sag over time. Which would throw your whole printer out of the line. Indirectly that also means that you no long must level your tool head using this screw here, which was quite a pain now it will level using the auto levelling sequence and this one will be only a fraction of a mil out from that. The filament drive system overhaul is obviously massive what it does mean, is that it's no longer important to only print using rigid filaments on the dual extruder this is now essentially a dual extruder it could be a flexi extruder or a flexi jewel that you could print with any combination of any filaments with this v3 dual extruder. Which is exciting. Next up would be my favourite part, only because I must toil away with this v2 tool head for so long with heat creep issues. Is the heat break cooling system, I'm really excited to see this work exactly as I expect it I hope it does and finally the overall look of it is much better it's much more sensible and changing filaments in and out is going to be a lot easier with these new idler tensioners.

So overall a really great job from well spot and I'm keen to get it on the 3d printer. So, if you have any questions about this tool head leave a comment below and keep up to date with our new tutorials coming out soon, which will be covering over how to use the dual extruder in all sorts of exciting ways.

Thanks for watching guys, have a great day.