Driver extension for MKS GEN
Вставка
- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Sorry about the crappy audio. This is the first time I've used new video editing software and the way it converted audio is just horrible.
Extension to add two more extruders to MKS GEN board
Extension PCBs: github.com/art...
Hey Artur
It's been awhile ..good to see you back! Yes it was difficult hearing you at times..but great video as always.
Thank you. Good to hear from you, Darren!
There is an expansion board available it's around $6 -- not as clean an need as your setup, but no need to create your own board. I've used them often to add additional steppers to my machines. I'm using TMC2100s in a pair now. I think you should look at Prusa multi material upgrade, I believe he has a separate board handling filament switching -- 8 bit boards can't handle this number of stepper drivers. A 32 bit board -- I'm using a Duet -- would be much better for such a configuration
I agree. 4 extruders may be beyond what 8bit CPU can handle. I wanted ability to run 4 extruders at the same time in case I try using diamond mixing hot end. I hope 32bit boards become popular and inexpensive soon. Until then Prusa approach is probably better.
A 32 bit china clone of a smoothie isn't that expensive -- MKS SBase is only $60 -- which is a very reasonable price IMO. If you're using 8825 drivers and are happy with them, then this board is your best bet. It has 2 extruder steppers built in, and you can use your expansion board to add 2 more very easily -- no need to recompile the firmware, just change the config file and define extra extruders etc. You can also do super cool things like define T4, and T5, etc to create mixing ratios etc, so if you had white and red loaded in T0 and T1, you can define T4 (your virtual 5th extruder) to be 50% T0 and 50 T1 and create pink. A lot more options. If you spend extra, you can get a cohesion 3D board -- which is a US made smoothie board. In either case it's trivial to add extra steppers to it. Prusa approach is very tricky -- it's relying on properly cooling and retracting filament and each color change -- not a simple thing to get right -- plenty of people report clogs using that solution.
Hi Artur, thanks for the update. Audio was sometimes hard to understand. You may check Prusas solution to switch Extruders github.com/prusa3d/MK2mm_Stepper_switch
sorry about the audio. First time I used new software and apparently it has trouble handling audio with different sampling rates. I wanted to be able to drive 4 extruders simultaneously in case I try diamond mixing hot end but it appears that that's beyond what 8 bit controllers can handle.