Re: What do i need for dual extruders?

[Jorge Pinto]

2012/9/25 Eduardo <eduard...@gmail.com>:
> Hi Jorge,

Hello Eduardo.

I am sending a copy of this message to development group, to were this
discussion belongs.


> I would like your help on getting the R2C2 board to drive a dual extruder
> printer. Besides the extra stepper drive i need to add.
> How do i connect it and what changes have to made to the firmware?

Connecting it to expansion header should not be difficult (including
defining the pins to use), but firmware and software side should be
difficult and I can't help now. Maybe some other developers can help
on this task.

--
Jorge Daniel Pinto
+351 927 145 983
jpi...@bitbox.pt

www.bitbox.pt
IEUA - Universidade de Aveiro
Portugal

[Kyle Swanson]

Hello everyone,

I would also like to see dual extruders implemented.  Since the R2C2 firmware is based on the Teacup firmware, we should be able to have many extruders.

If anyone is coding inclined, it would be great if we could implement 2 steppers on the available expansion UART's.  There are UART stepper drivers out there.  A shield would be nice though.  Also a R2C2 replicatorg that supported the extra toolheads.

Or it could be implemented on the SPI bus.  In which case we would only be hardware limited by the number of SPI adresses available.  

I am not coding inclined, but at some point I am going to want to use dual extrusion.  I hope it's with R2C2 instead of another board.

[bobc]

I have a dual extruder on order from the QU-BD Kickstarter, so sometime I will put together an extruder shield, and also add support in the firmware.

[Jorge Pinto]

2012/10/1 bobc <bobcou...@googlemail.com>:

> I have a dual extruder on order from the QU-BD Kickstarter, so sometime I
> will put together an extruder shield, and also add support in the firmware.

Great news ;-) -- I wish we can help by producing and put available
for selling to R2C2 users (including all needed support on software
and firmware).

>> If anyone is coding inclined, it would be great if we could implement 2
>> steppers on the available expansion UART's. There are UART stepper drivers
>> out there. A shield would be nice though. Also a R2C2 replicatorg that
>> supported the extra toolheads.

I would try to avoid using UART and let if free for other things like
Linux board or physical control panel.