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Dual Extrusion Woes

jberk131

Hello all,

 

This is my first post on element14, and it's a challenge I've been facing for months. I have a rebranded Makerbot Replicator 2 which i got from monoprice.com. Supporting documentation is scarce, but the motherboard has another driver slot and ports for a second print tool, so I put one together and installed it. It has the same temp. sensor and hot end electronics as the existing one did and the stepper is the same as well. The fans are the same voltage and I've double and triple checked the connections. With only one tool running everything runs perfectly smooth, but when i try to do a dual extrusion test the first layer will get partway through and the entire printer will shut off then turn back on. It seems like the power supply cannot handle it, or that there is a short, but as I've said the connections seem to be sound. I've read in one other forum that the power supply on this type of printer isn't quite capable of running the extra stepper but i want to be sure before I go tearing apart my printer any further. Any tips or suggestions, or anyone else who has done this? I couldn't seem to find any instances.

 

Thanks in advance! 

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  • 0

    Hi Joshua,

    Some of the active components used in power supplies have provisions to shut down and protect themselves should they over heat. If you can monitor the power supply while it is dual printing perhaps you can use an IR thermometer to isolate the component that is overheating. If you know what is overheating you could improve its heat sinking or add a fan that will keep its temperature from going critical.

    John

  • 0 in reply to jw0752

    Thanks for the quick reply, I'll give that a try. Could it really happen that quickly though? And why would it power back on right away? Or is that part of the safety feature? Not trying to question you here, this is just the first time I've tinkered with my printer this much and as a college student don't have the capital to replace it should I mess up too much..

  • 0 in reply to jberk131

    Hi Joshua,

    I am just speculating. If there is a component that is over heating it would shut down as soon as it went over temp and it would try to work again as soon as the heat dropped back into the operational range. You may want to err on the side of caution if you do not have lots of funds to throw at the project. This is certainly not good behavior and too much heat can cause component failure even if they have been protected. The component that you have added that will require the most current is likely the heater. It should have its own driver and regulator circuits however the load will ultimately fall back on the power supply. If it is a brick switching supply we may also be looking at a high current shut down. The switching supplies are often well protected and will shut off quickly when they are over their current limit and then switch back on almost immediately. If the high current is still there they will repeat the process. If this is the problem you will just have to get a supply that can handle the higher current demanded by the two print heads and related circuitry.

    John

  • 0 in reply to jw0752

    John,

    That makes a lot of sense. I will probably try to measure the voltage and current draw coming fro the additional components and compare them to the specs of the supply. Thank you for your feedback it has been very helpful.

    -Josh

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