Advance Dual Extruder- retracting head

thingiverse

I'm working to improve dual extruder printing. I added a servo that swings the extruder by 10 degrees, allowing me to lift the unused extruder about 1-2 millimeters above the bed. I tested this setup on my CoreXY printer, which you can find at thingiverse.com/thing:1183198. For motion control, I'm using a small MG90S servo. On my printer, I'm running RAMPS 1.4 Marlin code (testing versions 1.0 and 1.1.0-RC3). My servo is connected to port 11. Using the standard M280 Px Sy command works well for moving the servo, but automatically switching tools with the slicer, like Slic3r or Simplify3D, is a bit tricky. That's why I created a custom G-code, M801, to accomplish this. Here's how it works: The M801 command moves the servo to the specified P or S position in milliseconds based on the T value. So, if you enter T0 = use the P value and T1 = Use the S value. Examples include: M801 P50 S100 T0 - Move to millisecond 50 M801 P50 S100 T1 - Move to millisecond 100 Additionally, with M801 P50 S100 T[next_extruder], you can move the servo to millisecond position based on next extruder. You can use Simplify3D and replace 'next_extruder' with 'new_tool'. Here's how it works for Marlin 1.1 and above: For this custom G-code to work in Simplify3D, you'll need to enter the following line of code: M801 P50 S100 T[new_tool]. For more information on configuring this command, refer to the documentation at thingiverse.com/thing:1183198. This solution makes it easy to change tool position based on slicer configuration, giving users the flexibility to switch tools smoothly without worrying about complex custom commands. With a little experimentation and configuration tweaking, anyone can upgrade their printer to accommodate multiple extruders using this ingenious system.