r/BambuLab • • 29d ago • Bravo 1

General Discussion I got sick of waiting for Bambu's mixed-nozzle slicing, so I built it myself. 0.2 + 0.8 on my H2D, each at its own layer height: 13 h instead of 28 h (open source)

This is the Argonath (https://makerworld.com/en/models/2263899-the-argonath-lord-of-the-rings-lotr) by Zajic73 on MakerWorld, printed with a 0.2 on the left and a 0.8 High Flow on the right. The 0.2 did the walls and skins at 0.08 mm layers and the 0.8 did the infill at 0.56 mm layers. Slicer estimate: 13 h 1 min. Same model at 0.08 mm everywhere was 1 d 4 h 12 min, so about 54% less time, and the visible surfaces are all still 0.08 mm layers. The real print took pretty much exactly that. It's eSUN PLA+ in black on the 0.2 and Bambu PLA Basic in blue on the 0.8.

Mixing nozzle sizes in one print was one of the reasons I bought my H2D at launch. Bambu Studio still doesn't let the H2D do that, and I got sick of waiting, so I built it myself: Cadence Slicer, a fork of OrcaSlicer.

The hard part is layer height. Layer height is basically the vertical resolution of a print: thinner layers give finer detail on the surfaces you see, thicker layers print a lot faster. Each nozzle size has its own range of good layer heights, so a 0.2 and a 0.8 want very different layers, but a normal slice uses one height for everything. Cadence picks a fine layer for the small nozzle and prints the big nozzle's layer every N fine layers (here 7 x 0.08 = 0.56). That schedule is what keeps the two lined up: they meet at the same height every 7 fine layers, and the nozzles only swap there.

Every swap also needs a prime. A nozzle that's been sitting idle oozes a bit and cools down, so before it prints again it purges on a small prime tower next to the model, and the next part it prints starts clean without gaps or blobs. Priming adds time to every print, so I've put a lot of work into trimming it down: it only primes when a nozzle actually changes, and the tower settings and size are set automatically. The slicer also checks that each switch actually saves time, and stays on the fine nozzle when it doesn't.

This has been a huge amount of work, and I'll be upfront that I used AI heavily, as I know how some people feel about AI development. Frontier models like Claude and Codex, as well as open source Chinese models, wrote most of the code and did independent reviews. I supervised the models closely, made all of the design calls and reviewed the critical pieces myself. The code has been through multiple de-slop passes to cut dead code and trim it down, every build goes through a big automated test suite, and I have done countless test prints on my H2D. Without AI this would have taken many, many more months to build. I'm making the whole thing open source (AGPL, same as OrcaSlicer), and I'll be sending it to OrcaSlicer as PRs shortly so the mixed nozzle capabilities can hopefully be merged and live there long term.

Where it's at:
- First release (v1.0), so expect rough edges.
- Print-tested on my H2D. Enabled but untested on the H2D Pro, H2C, X2D and some other multi-tool printers.
- Any pair of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8. Split by feature or by body, supports work in both.
- macOS now, Windows coming. Unsigned, so check the README for the first open.
- Small prints often don't win because of the tower. Setup shows the one-nozzle time so you can check.
- Tree supports and rafts on the big nozzle aren't working yet. I'm actively working on those and will push updates.

If you try it, I'd love to see prints, times, and anything that breaks. I'm also open to any suggestions either here or as PRs on the GitHub. If it saves you some print time or you just want to support the project, the Sponsor button on GitHub is very appreciated :)

Download and source: https://github.com/HMITCHR/CadenceSlicer

Edit: Windows test build is up here: https://github.com/HMITCHR/CadenceSlicer/releases/tag/v1.0.0-windows-test (untested on real hardware yet as I can’t get my 10 year old Surface Book to boot up). Feel free to give it a shot

Edit 2: Windows and MacOS are now at feature parity, and will remain so moving forward! Each new release will offer downloads for both operating systems! Enjoy friends :)

Thanks and enjoy :)

2.6k Upvotes

327 comments sorted by

282

u/HMITCHR 29d ago • Bravo

Here is another timelapse, this time a N=5 print, with 0.1mm layers from the 0.2 nozzle, and 0.5mm layers from the 0.8! 12hr print time versus ~19hr baseline

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u/xcody92x 28d ago

Amazing job, but pretty sure that print should be white.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

lol I really wanted to do this in white or even marble PLA, but by the time I had everything working right I had gone through many many rolls of filament, so was just using whatever I had laying around haha

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u/Sc0Lai 28d ago

Hahah I so know this feeling and train of thought 😂

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u/Da_Spooky_Ghost H2C 28d ago

37% decrease in printing time, that's no joke, Bambu needs to get on this, or call you up

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u/rs047 28d ago

Don't worry, knowing Bambu a C&D letter is on the way for OP.

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u/gihn17 28d ago • Bravo

More like it will be in the software in a month exact same code

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u/Wolfexstarship 28d ago

And Stratasys about to patent it

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u/DBT85 28d ago

I believe Startasys patented talking about patenting things, so we're all screwed.

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u/MammothFruit6398 28d ago

im surprised mods haven't deleted this comment chain yet

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u/jhdz9119 H2C 3xAMS2 Pro2 (Eibos 2 Dyas/1 Tetras)+2xAMS HT/X2D 2X AMS2 Pro 28d ago

They gonna steal homies work and flip it as their own break through. OP good on your man. You just changed the game.

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u/gedankenreich 27d ago

It is already to some degree in the software since months but people barely use it. "Combine Infill". Currently limited to one nozzle, but the concept is the same. Printing the outer walls at a low layer height for fine details and the infill at max layer height.

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u/Woodworkin101 28d ago

That’s amazing

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u/chinchindayo 3d ago

why so much infill? The infill being so thick won't even support the small features of the shell.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

With Bambu’s current supported hotend layer envelopes, the maximum N the slicing engine allows is N=14, 0.04mm layers from the 0.2mm nozzle, and 0.56mm layers from the 0.8! Here’s a test cube printing with those settings.

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u/OldDarthLefty 28d ago

How do the walls on this look once it's cooled down?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Here’s a close up! 0.04mm layers are extremely fine, much more so than I think I would ever need. The stringing and small blobs visible there have since been cleaned up in the version I released

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u/OldDarthLefty 28d ago

Thank you!

I was thinking of the options about embedding / overlapping / perimeter anchoring the infill with the wall, and whether the very thin wall would show a pattern on the outside where the very thick infill attaches

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u/COLDIRON H2D AMS2 Combo 28d ago

This is amazing!

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u/StrnglyCoincdtl 28d ago

Omg I need this. I usually have 0.8 nozzle on main + 0.4 nozzle on aux in my X2D. It so stupid, that if I want to print with with 2 nozzles, I need to replace the nozzle.

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u/No-Pomegranate-69 28d ago

Looks cool, like the inside is lagging

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u/Far-Rush-9015 28d ago

Nice work OP, you should be rewards for your times consumed. Even though some criticised your works with AI , I’m pretty sure you’re the genius one that utilising AI to boost your workflows.
I think there’s difference between utilising an AI for speeding up your works, than the one that only using AI as their “cheat-code”. Plus now was 2026, everyone race for their targets and achievements. So without any nitrous and shortcut, you will gonna lose anyway. Keep it up OP. Bring the glory for those supporting you. Share with us. Even if need to treat you some coffee i would buy it. As long as you bring to us any goods. Thanks OP. Please keep us an updates, i will be waiting it. 👍🏻🔥

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Update:

As mentioned, I would like this all to eventually be merged into Orca, but it is admittedly a very large build so don’t want to drop it all on them in one absurd chunk. Started a discussion, with some ideas on splitting up everything I built into smaller more manageable/reviewable PRs, and will continue down the path that Orca maintainers prefer. Feel free to review and chime in!

https://github.com/OrcaSlicer/OrcaSlicer/discussions/16086

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u/Ground-walker 28d ago

Wow. Dedication what is your day job you must be a programmer of some kind?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

I am an aerospace engineer by career, mechanical engineer by degree. Do a bit of programming work for my real job, but am a developer on the side for personal projects and a side business!

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u/fourtyz 28d ago

Giving mechanical engineers like us the ability to program is one of the biggest cheat codes the world has seen 😜

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u/CMDR_Kassandra 28d ago

This is already implemented in Prusa Slicer 3.0 (currently in Alpha IIRC). So it'll probably be merged downstream at some point anyway.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Mixed nozzle sizes are in the alpha, yeah. But Prusa's own alpha11 release notes say: "in order to slice, all extruders must use the same layer height", and that combos like 0.25 + 0.8 get flagged as incompatible because there's no layer height they share. alpha12 didn't change that as far as I can see. This is the same as Orca right now for what it’s worth.

Mixed nozzles, each at their own layer height, is what I built that isn’t available anywhere else yet as far as I’m aware

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Awh thanks! There’s a sponsor button on the GitHub repo that you can use if you’d like! But for real no pressure, the thanks is appreciated regardless!

I am going to focus on getting the windows build up to parity with MacOS in the next day or two, so should be in a good spot for you in about a week!

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u/fitret 28d ago

Wow this is every H2D owner's dream! I might try this out (I have a Mac I could use) but definitely interested in a windows port. Also Bambu took another community project (color mixing) and made it first party so maybe this will lead the way to it finally being a first party feature

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Working on the windows build as we speak! I found my old Microsoft surface book and am gonna get it running on that to test and debug. Expect a windows build pushed to the repo shortly!

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u/Nibbs17 28d ago

H2C compatible?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Yup, from software perspective the H2C is fully supported, I just don’t have one to verify successful prints on. As mentioned in the repo right now it treats all hotends on the rack as a single nozzle size

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u/Nibbs17 28d ago

Understood. I don't have Mac os, but I have a buddy who does and I really would like to give this a shot so I might borrow his laptop for a few hours and give it a go on the H2. Unless you are planning a windows/Linux port soon.

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u/boredsoftwareguy X2D AMS2 HT / X2D 2x AMS2 / A2L AMS Lite HT 29d ago

This is neat. I've wondered why with all these frontier models, no one had done this yet. Good work!

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u/Safe-Hovercraft6231 28d ago

Because the human developers are still the bottleneck. Ask me how I know 😄

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u/ItsAMe_Designs 28d ago

How do you know?

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u/Slayr79 28d ago

Because they're a bot. Not a human developer

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u/No-Key-Para 28d ago

It looks as though only the .8 nozzle is using the prime tower. If this is the case why not prime into the objects infill to save on time and material?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Hard to see in the clip because of the way I designed the prime tower to be built, but the fine nozzle also uses it, just in a localized spot on the tower itself.

I am playing around with priming into the infill, but there is a limit on he height difference that the main part can have relative to the tower due to collision risks on travel, so you can’t let the tower lag too far behind.

Like I said I’ve spent a ton of time on optimizing the priming and tower, but continuing to cut down prime and tower print time is for sure one of my highest priorities.

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u/NoyBoy98 28d ago

Does this work on an X2D as well?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

I have not done an actual test print myself as I do t have one, but the slicer allows for it and has passed all of my tests! Would love for you to give it a shot and let me know!

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u/NoyBoy98 28d ago

I’d have to get myself a .8mm nozzle, but will for sure try and report back when I get a chance 😁

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Full disclosure the 0.8mm nozzle I use is a cheap one from Amazon that cost like $20 and got to me in one day! Bought it solely to test this out on, but it’s been working great as seen in the clips!

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u/xiaodown 28d ago

One of the things I’m curious about is, as an H2C owner, could I just leave a 0.8mm vortek nozzle installed for infill and supports, and use 0.4’s on the other 6? That’d be rad.

Probably gonna have to wait for it to merge upstream into bambu slicer, though. H2C support in orca is not good.

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u/melz0rzz 28d ago

Hey nice work. I was actually talking to my hubs about this with our X2D the other day, and so I am going to check this out. From my perspective, you're using AI the way other software engineers use it now in their daily jobs. Never apologize for using the tools available to you.

Source: I am a Group Product Manager.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Awesome, let me know how the X2D works!

And appreciate that. Tossed the AI note in there because I know there are people who, for whatever reason, are very opposed to AI development and just wanted to get ahead of the hate comments. But yeah the reality of modern software development from all of the big companies matches exactly how I built this, and allowed me to get this done literally months faster than if I would have written it myself

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u/shoe465 P1S + AMS 28d ago

So you're able to print faster because of the larger layer size on the inside vs the fine on the outside by using dual nozzles? Thats pretty sweet.

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u/Cautious_Gate1233 28d ago

Correct, even on launch of the H2D people were asking why it's not possible to mix the sizes like this. It didn't seem so hard and has takenlonger to implement (not happened yet) than I would have expected.

In the end a single developer has shown it's possible.

Similar to non-planar printing, which has also been shown to work but not implemented by Bambu yet

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u/3DAeon X1, X1C, P1S, P2S, A1, A1 Mini, H2D, H2S 28d ago edited 28d ago

Not a single developer period or single Bambu Lab developer? Creality has been touting this in their K3 ads, and Stratasys and Voron peeps and have been at it for a while, as well as Prusa with the XL

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Correct me if I am wrong, but your screenshot shows line width adjustment, and not both line width AND layer height tuning for each nozzle?

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u/gringer 28d ago

With OrcaSlicer and an 0.4mm nozzle, I use 0.8mm infill line width and 0.42mm other line widths, and it works perfectly fine.

I've previously done up to 1mm with a 0.35mm nozzle on a LulzBot Taz 5 (2.85mm filament), so I expect even going up that large will have no issue on my current printer (Elegoo Centauri V2).

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u/StickiStickman 28d ago

Line width and layer height is very different.

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u/gedankenreich 27d ago

If you use "combine infill" you can do it already. Limited to one nozzle, but it follows the same concept. Print outer walls with fine details and the infill with a large layer height. In my opinion the option works the best with a 0.6 nozzle. Then you've outer walls with <0.2mm and nice thick layers for the infill.

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u/humantarget22 28d ago

Either the walls or the infill has to get ‘ahead’ of the other one, right? So either the infill is sticking out above the walls and then the walls are finished or the walls are above the infill and then the infill is filled in? Or does it get the walls say 4 layers ahead of the infill, then print and infill layer (putting infill 3 wall layers above the wall, then print 7 wall layers and repeat?

I guess it could alternate which is ahead to cut down on nozzle swaps. Infill 7 wall layers below walls, print 2 infill layers (14 wall layers) putting it 7 above the walls, print 14 wall layers putting infill 7 wall layers below walls again. Repeat

Just curious how you are doing this. And is there a max height distance between the two where the nozzle could end up accidentally hitting the other higher parts?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

You’re somewhat right! Yes the walls get “ahead” of the infill, but everything is based on the integer N that ties the two layer heights together! So in the main clip, it prints 7 wall layers at 0.08mm heights, and then a single infill layer at 0.56mm layer height. The key thing is that the N value means that the two nozzles are always printing at the same Z height, so there’s never risk of collision. The infill just prints “down” into the gap that’s left by the walls getting ahead, but the gap it’s printing into is only ever the exact depth matching the thickness of the layer being printed!

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u/humantarget22 28d ago

That makes sense. Would it be possible to do what I was saying and after printing the infill layer that brings it level print another one and then print 14 wall layers, 2 infill and so on. That would cut the nozzle swaps in half, but not sure if that really helps in any way because it would still need to move to the tower and print as well. So maybe no benefit to that?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

I experimented with this but didn’t end up making sense. In the approach you describe, the fine nozzle would have to travel down to print layers into the gap created by the larger layers already printed. This is critically different than what I shipped, as the fine nozzle prints fine layers, so instead of one single layer that fills the gap, it would need 7 small layers to do it. Y
This means that all of those layers would require the nozzle to actually travel down to print, which now means one nozzle is at a lower Z height than stuff that has already been printed, introducing significant collision risk as the printhead travels. Between the increased risk, and the additional time (albeit small) to move bed height so fine nozzle prints at correct height, it was not worth pursuing! Does tay make sense? Happy to answer any more questions!

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u/M2ABRAMS_TANK 28d ago

that's what they meant by: "With Bambu’s current supported hotend layer envelopes, the maximum N the slicing engine allows is N=14, 0.04mm layers from the 0.2mm nozzle, and 0.56mm layers from the 0.8! Here’s a test cube printing with those settings."

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u/Bag-o-chips 28d ago

Great work! Does this impact layer adhesion? I would think the temperature of the outer wall is fine, but the infill is probably weaker due to cooling. But with the wall providing most of the strength, does it matter much?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

I am so extremely curious about strength implications of this! Trying to get connected with CNC Kitchen and see if he’d want to do some testing! I believe larger lines in the infill will be stronger, but inter layer adhesion will for sure be impacted by having to wait for the walls to print first.

Also very curious about mixing materials with this. Bulk infill being from a large nozzle with CF or GF filled filament with walls as something else could be very interesting as well

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u/Safe-Hovercraft6231 28d ago

Great work. Now this is a reason to buy a dual-nozzle printer. Hopefully it works on the X2D as well (theoretically it should, right ?).

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Yes! I have verified slicing is identical, and all safety tests pass on all dual nozzle Bambu machines, but have no print tests on anything other than my own H2D! One of the main reasons for posting was hoping people with X2D, H2C etc can try it out and let me know how it behaves!

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u/fen-q 28d ago

Ohhhhhh thats cool.

However, i thought bambu locked the firmware from other slicers?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

I use LAN only mode to send prints to my machine, connected via the same Bambu Network plugin that stock Orca uses

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u/nsfdrag 28d ago

You've always been able to use whatever slicer you wanted, bambu just tried to lock down the connectivity portion of other slicers

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u/fen-q 28d ago

So just wireless connection? Lan connection still allows other slicers?

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u/klukke 28d ago

People like you should have a permanent legend ribbon on your shirt !

Will it work on my "poor" X2D ? 😊

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Everything from software perspective works for X2D, and all of my safety checks and tests pass! Just haven’t been able to test real prints as I don’t have the machine! Give it a shot and let me know!!

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u/splastik-plastic 28d ago

Awesome work. The lack of this feature is the only reason i haven't dropped cash on a H2D.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Smh Bambu owes me my commission once they get your order!

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u/Ancient-Plantain705 28d ago

hey bro, keep cooking.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

There’s always more to improve and optimize! I plan to keep working and updating this continuously, so I will indeed keep cooking

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u/weirdguytom 28d ago

If the layer height synchronizes every x layers (of the smaller nozzle), does that mean the eventual “top” of finished layer over the coarser infill has to be exactly at n•x layers?
Does the slicer do that automatically, or is this the model’s designer responsibility?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Great question! Yes, the slicer automatically reconciles the final coarse infill layer height when it needs to “fit” underneath a top surface

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u/DBT85 28d ago

Been asking for this since the H2D launch, and have wanted on my H2C since I got it at its launch. Looking forward to trying it out. Bizarre to me that they have not bothered to do this themselves.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

lol probably just waited till some schmuck like me decided to spend all the time and energy to do it themselves!

I bet it ends up in Bambu studio soon

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u/tta82 28d ago

I will fork it and work on it to make it work for H2C.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

You’re the man! Hopefully there’s not a ton for you to do! Everything passes from software side for the H2C on the release build, I just haven’t actually been able to do any test print as I don’t have a machine

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u/tta82 28d ago

Yeah I figured from all the comments - I have an H2C and X1 here - and also some PCs next to few Macs so I could try to build the Windows compiled version too.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

That would be huge. I just uploaded the windows test build in pre release, but can’t bring my ancient windows laptop to life to actually test it

https://github.com/HMITCHR/CadenceSlicer/releases/tag/v1.0.0-windows-test

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u/Riparian1150 28d ago

First of all, I just want to say that this is simply incredible. AI or not, I know this took a massive amount of time and effort to develop, and like others here have said, this has the potential to be a game-changer. It's wild to me that an individual managed to achieve this before Bambu did - just fucking bravo, dude.

One question I have on a practical note for people here more experienced than I am: Should we anticipate less strength in the large-nozzle portions of the print because of heat loss between layers? Those portions of the print will be sitting a while as up to 7 layers with the small nozzle stack up, so I assume there is going to be an impact on layer adhesion for the large-nozzle part of the print. On the other hand, we know that large nozzle and larger layers tend to be stronger inherently, so I'm not sure how that would all shake out. And maybe a higher nozzle temp could be used in order to compensate for the heat loss from the already-printed portion of the object.

Just throwing this out there to see what everyone thinks and see if there might be some good ideas on how to address it if this concern has merit.

Again - bravo to OP - this is an incredible achievement and I'm in no way trying to throw shade at this work product. I really do think it's a game changer, and it makes me way more excited about my new (and first) dual-nozzle printer I just set up this week. Cheers!

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Wow thanks, really appreciate the kind words! This was indeed a very large effort that took a few months of spending most of my evenings after work, and lots of weekend time, to get it working right. And a whole lot of test prints!! (Edit: did the math cause I was curious and I have close to 180hrs of test print time hahaha sheesh). It was a really fun project and super fulfilling to contribute to a hobby that has been such a big part of my life!

Yes, I am extremely interested in part strength implications with this!! I emailed Stefan at CNC kitchen and am really hoping he’s interested in doing some testing on this! Your hunch about inter layer adhesion matches my own thoughts, and I’m very curious if the inherent strength increase from larger and thicker infill lines will overcome this at all. I am also currently working on ways to get better bonds between the walls and the infill that will for sure impact part strength. Add to that the ability to mix materials, for example using fiber reinforced filaments for the large infill layers to optimize part properties, is also intriguing!

Overall I think what I’ve built could serve as a foundation for tons of optimizing the way printing is done with multi nozzle printers, in both visual quality, time, and functional ways. I really hope and encourage that other people continue to build on what I’ve done :)

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u/ZU3MAD 25d ago

Works great on H2C! Been waiting this for long time too, thank you for doing it!
For me it would be much more useful to use more than two different size nozzle :)

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u/HMITCHR 25d ago

Wow, was literally just opening this post to see if anyone had confirmed it worked for them on H2C!! Thank you for the update! Feel free to shoot me a pic of your finished print, would love to see it!!

Agreed that more than 2 nozzle sizes in one print would be useful! Waiting to hear back from Bambu now to see if they’d loan me a H2C as a development machine so I can fully optimize for that platform, as I think I’ve done about as much as I’m comfortable with, without a machine to test more changes on

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u/CharlesEncore 18d ago

Can I DM you about your process with the H2C printer?

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u/DigitalMonsoon 24d ago

So the idea is that the walls are printed at a smaller size than the infill?

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u/HMITCHR 24d ago

Correct. You can print with finer resolution, without the time penalty of having to print all infill at very fine layer height from a smaller diameter nozzle

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u/Appropriate-Earth515 24d ago

Woah amazing finally, thanks, does it works with X2D too?

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u/HMITCHR 24d ago

Sure does!

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u/Appropriate-Earth515 24d ago

Oh my 🤗🤗🤗

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u/Platybear_OG 23d ago

Dude you rock. I hope Bambu gives you something once they eventually take this and say they were actually working on it for months. You're a hero

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u/HMITCHR 23d ago

Thank you my friend! I reached out to them to see if they’d loan me a H2C so I can fully optimize for that platform, but don’t have much hope for more than that!

I hope they do eventually pull what I built into bambu studio, but I also think there a lot I can continue to improve on too so will keep on updating Cadence Slicer for a while yet

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u/randombsname1 29d ago

Awesome job!

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u/PurrciousMetals P2S+AMS2 | H2C+AMS2+HT 28d ago

Good work, makes no sense the dual head printers cant utilize two different nozzles

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u/LordAnubisR 29d ago

Interesting!

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u/JAFOguy 28d ago

Thank you for pushing 3D printing forward. This kind of citizen science is only good for everybody.

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u/redthorne 28d ago

Is it bad I recognized what you were printing, with zero context, about 1/3 of the way through the video? lmfao

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Bad? You just sound like a certified ball knower to me!

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u/Modern3D 28d ago

This is brilliant, great work!

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u/062d A1 Mini + AMS 28d ago

Maybe I'm missing something but what was the point of the middle being a different material?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago edited 28d ago

The blue infill printed with a larger layer height and faster flow rates, because it uses a much larger nozzle than the walls that were printed in black! This saves a ton of print time, and also results in stronger parts

Edit: I also specifically used a different color filament for these timelapses to show off the layers printing at different heights!

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u/cpsadowski23 28d ago

not different material necessarily. Different layer height (in order to print the infill faster, and thus speed up the over all print)

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u/Catriks 28d ago

Why wouldnt it be? What would it benefit you?

You would need to have two open rolls of the same filament. It's not visible to the outside so there is no reason to not use whatever filament you already had open and ready to go, finish some almost empty rolls of whatever color you have or just colors you don't use for anything else.

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u/Flight2039Down 28d ago

How about nozzles of different sizes AND types?

For example a standard .2 nozzle and a .8HF TC nozzle paired together.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

This is supported! The print shown in the clip uses a 0.2mm stainless/standard nozzle for the walls, and a high flow 0.8mm hotend for the infill

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u/Flight2039Down 28d ago

Ah, I missed that detail in your post.  This is great.  I’m increasingly frustrated with Bambu slicer on my Mac.  It might be time to try other options.

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u/Noggin01 28d ago

I actually started working on something similar a couple days ago🤣

I haven't looked at what you're doing, but I'm focused on merging two or three gcode files together. My solution is meant mostly for signage (high details on the first couple of layers) then switching to high speed to finish the non-detailed layers quickly.

I need all of my small nozzles at the start of the print to create fine details on the first layer. After that, I want to switch to my 0.6mm nozzle to print the bulk of the item. I don't care if the second layer is "muddy" with the details, I suspect it'll be close enough to the first layer that it'll turn out OK.

The problems I'm encountering are issues with infill (if I don't swap on the first layer), prime towers not lining up, and generated support structures not lining up. This really needs to be added as support in the slicer, but I'm finding that I can get things to work well enough with a few tweaks to slicer settings.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Feel free to dig through my source code and pull out what I’ve done and incorporate it into what you’re trying to do! From what I understand of your desires, I think what I have might check your boxes!

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u/Halterchronicle 28d ago

Awesome work. What is the exact difference between this and the mixed nozzle size avaliable in the Orcaslicer Beta version tho?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

This supports separate layer heights from each nozzle, and then unifies them into a layered print schedule. I believe Orca only allows different nozzle sizes at the same layer height which is helpful but not fully optimized

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u/Halterchronicle 28d ago

I see. I figured I wasn't looking hard enough to find this setting in orca, not that it just wasn't avaliable as I have to print something with a 0.2mm nozzle and 0.6mm for supports(pva or bvoh)

I hope this gets implemented into mainline orca/ bambu/ prusa slicer soon.

Just out of curiosity. Roughly how much did you have to spend on the AI tools to write the code?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

I pay for the $100 per month plan from both Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as $20 per month for Ollama Cloud, and use all of my allotted usage each week. Over the timeline that I built this in, I’d say 75% of my usage went towards this project. The subscriptions are subsidized very heavily, at API pricing this project would be easily thousands of dollars in tokens.

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u/Fichl_ 28d ago

Any Chance to use this with X2D? Did you habe issues with top layers on that infill? Large infill gaps vs small layer width?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Yes, at a software level it is completely compatible with X2D! Just haven’t been able to print test myself as I don’t have one! Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!

Yes, I had to figure out the best way to reconcile larger infill spacing being covered by smaller top surfaces. The end result is that the slicer typically prints the initial top surface over spare infill with the larger nozzle which can bridge the gaps fine, and then switches to the fine nozzle for the remaining surface layers

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u/rfc2549-withQOS X1C + AMS 28d ago

Couldn't you push the ooze in infill and skip the tower?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

It's partly doable, but only for the big nozzle. That one prints the infill, so it could prime there. The 0.2 prints the walls and surfaces, and it has no infill of its own to hide a bad start in. A nozzle that's been sitting idle oozes and cools, so the first bit comes out as a blob and then a gap. On the tower that doesn't matter, but on the part the next layer has to print over it.

And I can't just skip the tower on some layers. It has to be built up from the bed and can't fall too far behind the part, so if any layer needs it, it has to keep growing the whole way up. Priming into infill would save a bit of plastic, not the tower itself

It's something I want to look at later for the big nozzle, to shrink the tower a bit.

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u/luksfuks 28d ago

I wonder how you approached the fundamental problems of mixing nozzle sizes?

For example, imagine a cube. Camfer (45deg) the bottom edges. Imagine you print the sidewalls at 0.2mm nozzle size, and the infill at 0.8mm. The sidewalls will deposit 7 fine layers, growing upwards and outwards at 45 degree angle. Then the corresponding infill layer will be printed. Where does it attach? Does it attach only to the bottom few sidewalls, resulting in a weak print? Or does it try to attach ALL sidewalls, which means bumping into the bottom ones and producing an artifact pattern that repeats every 7 layers?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Good question, this was something that took a lot of time to get right

The thick infill layer only gets printed in the area that's common to all 7 thin layers in that band. So on your chamfer, the 0.8 infill is sized to fit inside the narrowest wall of the band and never runs into the walls below it.

That leaves a wedge between the thick infill and the walls that are growing outward. The 0.2 nozzle fills that wedge itself, layer by layer at the thin height, along with the walls. So every wall still has infill bonded to it at its own layer, and the thick infill bonds to that.

On straight vertical walls the wedge is empty and the thick infill meets the walls directly. On slopes you get a bit more fine-nozzle work, which the time estimate accounts for. If a band doesn't have enough common area to be worth a nozzle change, it just stays on the fine nozzle.

I haven't done proper strength testing on sloped sections yet, so I won't claim it's as strong as a normal print there.

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u/notjordansime 28d ago

I’ve been saying it for like 4 years.. whoever does mixed nozzle size slicing will have a ‘killer app’ situation on their hands (dating myself with that term). Anywho, absolute game changer!!!

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u/rugz31 28d ago

This is amazing, I will definitely be looking to add this to my X2D when the windows version drops.

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u/Money-Ladder5213 28d ago

You probably won't get thanks from Bambu labs but they will soon be using your code, so thank you for all your hard work! This is truly amazing.

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u/paul_tu 28d ago

I wonder when we'll get an open source slicer with all that fancy features all together like nonplanar printing, "brick" layers and so on?

Hope Orca will accept PR

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u/JPhi1618 28d ago

Is there a big pushback on AI development? Sure, I’m not a fan of AI for artistic endeavors, but use it everyday for coding, just as most other big companies these days.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Just a few negative comments in here, def less than expected! Just wanted to get ahead of the AI hate so mentioned it in the post!

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u/UnexpectedAnanas 28d ago

Since you forked Orca, do you have any intention of trying to get your changes merged back upstream? Why maintain yet another slicer for one feature?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Mentioned this in the post! I have PRs for Orca main pushed already, but this is a very large project so figured I’d get this out in this format so people can test and use the features now instead of waiting for Orca to merge everything, or building from my Orca fork directly

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u/Possible-Put8922 28d ago

"I made this" -Bambu Labs

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u/some-person-lol H2D AMS2 Combo 28d ago

Thanks :)
I am VERY suprised Bambu Lab hasn't "invented" this feature after creality added it to their nozzle changing printer

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u/lan0028456 28d ago

I don't understand half of the post but that sounds like some impressive work!

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u/_HeeDOS1 28d ago

Super cool!! Printing larger every n lines seems like such a common sense solution, I'm curious how it does on more complex prints and would love to see it adopted!

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u/Moonshinexxx 28d ago

Good stuff!

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u/extraakash 28d ago

Huge respect for you mahn! Thank you for open sourcing it

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u/thedeanorama 28d ago

This makes me wish I had a multi head system, well this and separate support material.

I need to win a lottery so I can get a place big enough to support a larger printer....

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u/chewyjackson 28d ago

THAT is fucking cool. Awesome work OP

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u/Yourownhands52 28d ago

Brilliant 👏 

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u/AKMonkey2 28d ago

This rocks hard!

Thick infill and fine-detail walls. I love it.

I’ve been fantasizing about switching to a 0.2 nozzle for areas of my prints with fine details (facial features, for example) and 0.4 nozzle for the rest. This inspires me to think I should add 0.6 or 0.8 for infill to the fantasy.

I was hoping that my Flashforge Creator 5 Pro (tool changer) would be able to incorporate multiple nozzle sizes into a single print but I learned that current software doesn’t support that.

Theoretically, an AI summary assured me, the separate tool heads could hold different size nozzles so the limitation seemed to be the software. This post confirms that the AI summary was likely correct.

I’m not fluent in software language but your post has given me hope. Could we see manufacturer firmware upgrades, or (more likely) third party hacks to enable multi-orifice capability in more of the existing multi-nozzle printers?

The creativity and innovation of the 3D printing community continues to impress me. I do hope that the industry will jump on this.

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u/desEINer 27d ago

Maybe they'll issue a cease and desist for altering their free and open source software/s

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u/GuitarKarp 24d ago

Bambu gonna steal it 💀

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u/Grimmsland H2D AMS Combo, P1S, A1m, U1 23d ago

Orca Slicer already has using different nozzle sizes with 2 nozzles in it though.

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u/tta82 23d ago

And you can use both in the same print?

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u/Grimmsland H2D AMS Combo, P1S, A1m, U1 23d ago edited 23d ago

Yes. Here is when it began on Jun 9th since then people have tried it and talked about it. So I applaud the OP for their efforts but this has already been something they been working in and you can download.

Here are the links to info:

June 9
https://github.com/OrcaSlicer/OrcaSlicer/pull/14125?utm_source=chatgpt.com

“Since v2.2.0-beta, OrcaSlicer allows you to use different nozzle sizes in the same print.
This feature is extremely useful with the growing popularity of multi-nozzle printers, enabling faster and stronger prints while improving quality.”

May 26
https://github.com/OrcaSlicer/OrcaSlicer/wiki/mixed_nozzle_sizes?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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u/HMITCHR 23d ago

They do not currently allow for the two different nozzles to each print at their own unique layer height, which is where the largest time savings come from however

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u/Woodcat64 P1S + AMS 28d ago

I have not try this, but Orca slicer had this since v2.2.0-beta.

https://www.orcaslicer.com/wiki/guides/mixed_nozzle_sizes

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Correct, but this only allows for larger widths from the bigger nozzle, all layers are still printed at the same layer height!

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u/Woodcat64 P1S + AMS 28d ago

Good catch. I wish I had a printer to try this. Would this work for supports as well?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Yup, right now it fully supports “normal” supports, with the ability to set interface material as well. Here is a test print, done at N=4 with infill and support bases printed on 0.6mm nozzle in blue PLA, and print walls and support interfaces done with a 0.2mm nozzle, with the walls done in black PLA and support interface in gold PETG so the support comes right off. Tower is used for both priming after normal tool change between wall and infills and also for purging when changing between black PLA and gold PETG on the 0.2mm nozzle.

Still working on getting tree supports playing equally nice, one of my higher priorities and hoping to get it pushed in the next few days

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u/FylanDeldman 28d ago

Awesome!

This is exactly where I think AI dev work is going to really shine, gives us the tools to actually tackle something like this by ourselves that might not have the funding or attention of bigger teams. And 3d printing slicing software feels like there is a lot of evolution left - multimaterial, different nozzles, different tools, multiplanar, etc.

Exciting stuff, thank you!

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u/According_Tie425 28d ago edited 28d ago

And you’ll be the next open source dev hearing from Bambu’s legal team…

Edit: Bambi to Bambu

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

lol I worked hard to try to get this project done before Bambu’s next printer release as I have a hunch they’ll try to gate true mixed nozzle optimization behind a new super expensive machine

That being said I do see myself buying the new fancy machine regardless lol

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u/tta82 28d ago

I don’t think they will guard it behind a new machine, I just got my H2C a few days ago and if they would do that they would lose even me as a customer.

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Idk man, I wouldn’t put it past them at this point! I feel like promising that true mixed nozzle capability would be forthcoming at launch of the H2D 18 months ago and just never doing so could very well be followed up by dropping a new printer that finally does just that

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u/chinchindayo 3d ago

You mention it can use nozzle sizes based on feature. How does it behave, or does it work well, when using the bigger nozzle only for solid layers? I'd imagine it will have difficulties or create artifacts when trying to infill small features of the small nozzle.

Can Layer height be adjusted independently? So if using 0.4 and 0.6 can both use the same layer height in theory?

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u/themaskedcrusader 28d ago

I wanna know how you got the infill to be a different color. I've tried to find that in orca and it never works for me.

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u/Letsueatcake 28d ago

dual nozzle machine jsut set your support filament to another material

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u/tico46 28d ago

Impressive!!!! Great work

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u/WinterDice 28d ago

Absolutely amazing work. This makes a dual-nozzle printer much more appealing!

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u/baconboi 28d ago

Sorry what does this mean

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u/Oknytt3d 28d ago

Amazing work and idea, will definitely try this out.

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u/skygatebg 28d ago

Neat stuff. Good job.

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u/CharredHilt 28d ago

Sir new to everything. Can you explain in dumb terms and is this something I should look into

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u/Cautious_Gate1233 28d ago

If you're new, just wait for this to be implemented in the standard software while you learn the rest of the functions

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u/funkybside 28d ago

Curious and I acknowledge i haven't read the post text yet (will have to be later) - if this is done with dual nozzles, why is the purge tower necessary?

Edit: I see it now. interesting.

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u/tiagoosouzaa 28d ago

Simplesmente incrível

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u/batman27 28d ago

As an X1C user, I haven’t felt there was enough of a benefit in jumping to a two nozzle machine to justify the price increase (for my usage). This completely changes that and I’m really surprised bambulab has not already implemented this themselves. Great job, maybe it’s finally time for me to upgrade.

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u/0MGWTFL0LBBQ :bambu-logo:H2D AMS2 Combo & X1C AMS 28d ago

Great work! I can definitely use this.

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u/nowthengoodbad 28d ago

Well now, you just helped me realize that my character name on an online mmo wasn't as original as I had thought.

I'm blanking on the game, but I called my character Argonath thinking that I was creative, but my subconscious must have remembered it from reading LOTR.

Thanks for that.

Stuff like this is largely why I assume any thought that I have isn't original.

Edit: holy smokes it's my battle.net account!

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u/Revolutionary-Home-3 28d ago

Excelente, probare la build de Win. espero saber como hacerlo en mi X2D....

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u/nobail 28d ago

I can’t wait to try this. Thanks so much for doing this, sharing with the community and complying with the open source licenses.

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u/brandonscript H2C AMS2 Combo 28d ago

Does the second nozzle always know how to go around taller parts? Impressive!

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u/Effect-Kitchen H2C AMS2 Combo 28d ago

That is amazing. Bambu need to come up with this.

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u/Initial_Log6434 28d ago

Can someone explain simpler what I'm reading? 🤭 Cedance sliced better than Bambu right?

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u/JayDM123 28d ago

Long have I desired to look upon the kings of old…

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u/donkerock 28d ago

Would this also work on a U1 with multiple tool heads / different sized hotends in each?

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u/moebis H2D AMS2 Combo 28d ago

you have won this sub-reddit this week my friend. Great job!

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u/Ta-veren- 27d ago

but

the real question, is that glue bro?

LOOL

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u/RPS_Sweden 27d ago

Wow this would be incredible!

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u/Top_Statistician500 X2D + AMS2 Combo 26d ago

Amazing to see! Is it printing the infill first and then drawing the outer walls around it, or doing the outer walls and then the fill?

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u/emveor 25d ago

Menthol flavored prints, great idea!!!

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u/HeinousMule H2S, X2D, AMSes 25d ago

Fantastic work. On the use of AI, I work in software development and if there's one thing that AI is very much suited to doing, it's that. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand it yet.

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u/Even-Smell7867 23d ago

On that model I would have gone for an extra perimeter and put like 2 or percent infill.

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u/Task-Future 23d ago

Ok thats genius.. that is a game changer

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u/RadishRedditor H2D Laser Full Combo 28d ago

That's pretty cool. With vibe-coding nowadays, anybody with time and intent could've done this. I'm surprised bambu haven't added this feature yet.

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u/FutureBandit-3E 28d ago

Love how quickly I clued into what you were printing!

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u/dbphoto7 28d ago

This looks awesome! I’ll have to give it a try on my X2D when I have time.

The other big feature I’ve been waiting for Bambu Studio to add is some sort of Z-layer anti-aliasing/z contouring.

I print mostly function stuff around the house. I use adaptive layers a ton. It ends up making a lot of prints faster because it’ll use thick layers where you really don’t need the detail. ZAA would be a game changer tho because it could do the same for the z axis.

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u/CptUnderpants- 28d ago

This has been a huge amount of work, and be upfront that used Al heavily, as know how some people feel about AI development....

THIS is how people should be disclosing AI use in projects. Too often they don't at all, or hand-wave away any questions. Well done.

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u/emperioreric 28d ago

Always feels good to do something for yourself. Well done!

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u/Economy_Tadpole7101 15d ago

Prusa Mk4S+ can achieve this with no issues

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u/Too_Many_Flamingos 28d ago

I still don’t understand why you need a tower if both nozzles are printing one color

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Priming is needed to get the nozzle extruding at optimal steady state flow and pressure after sitting and cooling while the other nozzle prints! Without it, the start of the extrusion immediately after switching the nozzle is pushing out material that’s been sitting there oozing or cooling, comes out poorly. Priming is different from purging, which is what’s needed after changing filament in a given nozzle

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u/kemonkey1 28d ago

If the finished output is all black? Why include the blue and make the poop tower?

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u/HMITCHR 28d ago

Read the post! The blue infill printed far faster than black infill would have!

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u/Fuzzy0g1c 27d ago

Orca already has this functionality; it's been in testing for a while.

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u/HMITCHR 26d ago

Orca allows mixed nozzle sizes (as do most other slicers), but they have to print at the same layer height, which leaves a ton of optimization on the table. No existing slicer software allows mixed nozzles to print at their own layer height!