Two materials on the same extruder ! ( Need some tips )

[MorganTH]

Hello all !

I get an idea but unfortunaly, I m not as good in GCODE that what i want and need some helps !
Let's imaginate a specific parts with a support needed, the main parts in ABS and a little bit of Flexible materials on top of the objects. So if we want a raft and a support which can be soluble, a flexible material a lot of layers up ( let's say... 6 cm higher ) on the same extruder ( because in this case, we just get a dual extruder printer) and ABS in the other one I was thinking of somethink.

In Kisslicer we can configurate 4 extruder. Let s say that we told that ABS is in extruder 1, HIPS in extruder 2 and Flexible materials in extruder 3. We calibrate the X Y offset of extruder 3 to exactly fit where the extruder 2 is so this is physically the same but not in the GCODE. The tricks will be to manually remove the HIPS filament ( when we doesnt need more support), then insert the flexible, use the wall to purge and let s transform in the Gcode the Extruder 2 to Extruder 3 to get back off the materials settings.
This way we can have a virtual 3D printer with just two extruders ( without the alignement calibrations problems ).

We just need to have some layers beetween support and the other materials to purge, and a way to insert in the GCODE a way to say " let s roll the motor of the extruder 2 with the extruder 3 parameters."
I m not sure if my english is as correct as i hope and if you can understand what i was talking about but if you get any questions I ll be happy to answer to it !

Have a nice day !

Morgan

[IMBoring25]

If you have a large area of infill that isn't that critical for which filament is fed, you can figure out a distance from the input to your extruder drive to the nozzle and count back in the gcode that distance to decide where to cut the first filament and feed in the second one behind it.

Failing that, RepRapFirmware supports arbitrarily assigning tool numbers so you can have two identical tools defined and use a custom gcode when those tools are activated or released.

Any other solution will involve changing gcode by hand.

[MorganTH]

Yes this can be a nice solution ! Unfortunaly, the machine that i use in my job use a Marlin Firmware not a Reprap, so maybe it s a bit different. And in this case we get big big 3D printers (610x350x500) so, i let you imagine how long it will take to changing the gcode by hand for big prints.

What i am looking for is a way to change extruder temperature, prime and suck settings with ease for exemple to use PEEK and HIPS in the same extruder if we get a large Z offset beetwen layer which these both materials are needed.

I m mainly use Kisslicer but maybe i can swap to Simplify3D or Slic3r if needed.

Thanks for your answer.

[MorganTH]

I get the solution, Simplify3D offer the possibility to create some differents process and allow to change all settings !