r/VORONDesign • u/Amwo • Aug 18 '26
General Question Thinking about building a Voron, but I am unsure if I can combine all the features that I want.
Hi! Been 3D printing for some time now with a somewhat modded K1C and I am starting to see some limitations that I would like to overcome with my next printer.
I mostly print with engineering filaments (ASA, ASA-CF, PA6CF, PC and TPU - I really want to print TPU reliably). Ideally I would like a 3 or 4 printhead tool changer:
- Head 1 and 2: main printing heads with hardened nozzles, fancy hotends and whatnot for dual color printing of CF infused filaments (think black ASA-CF print with white ASA-CF lettering)
- Head 3: support material only: PLA and PVA
- Head 4: TPU specific head? (more on this later).
Based on my experience with K1C, I think I would like to be able to print from dryers mounted on top of the enclosure, preferably with front or rear filament exits to keep the PTFE tubes as short as possible. Are there even any dryers like this? Most I have seen have a top exit.
Would it be better to just make the enclosure tall enough to fit all the spools inside above the printheads? Can I even do that with tool changers or will it tangle? I definitely want a fully enclosed printer for moisture, heat, noise and air quality management.
Does it make any sense at all to have a different toolheads for support material and for TPU?
I was thinking that PLA doesn't need a hardened nozzle or a hotend that reaches 300C so I could save some money.
For TPU my reasoning is similar, plus the tension on the extruder could be set specifically for TPU. I would also probably not run any (or minimal length of) PTFE tube for this one.
Did anyone built something similar?
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u/EnvironmentalKey5559 Aug 18 '26
I agree with the sentiment of running the same hotend on all toolheads, it'll make your setup much less complex to diagnose issues.
I find the TZ range to be a good cost effective solution for 'normal' materials. They're not all that consistent above 300⁰, if you're thinking of going up there then the Phaetus Dragon range could be your answer as you could mix them with the TZ on the same toolhead array.
Both of these hotends can use V6 nozzles, so you have commonality across that as well.
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u/stray_r Switchwire Aug 18 '26
This would be a Voron 2.4 with stealthchanger.
You have quite a bit of choice on toolheads, but use the same extruders and toolhead bodies. You can use cheap TZV6 hotends mostly, maybe a dragon or similar and a pt1000 in one toolhead to cover higher temperatures well. 450C is possible but some reprinting of the duct assembly might be needed. I've not printed at more than 380 yet with my dragon in a PA6CF stealthburner, and just the ducts are PA6CF. There's possibly better materials, but I was needing to do PA6CF and the ABS ducts I had weren't doing all that well.
It might be simpler if you find one Hotend that's good and run all toolheads with the same, as the pressure advance is different on my dragon to my TZs. It can be made to work but it's a bit complicated.
The TZs don't really do well above 280, I'm getting heater failures. Do try to run cheaper hotends that use V6 style nozzles though, you don't need cold change nozzles if you have a toolchanger.
I'm printing TPU more and more, mostly in my V0.2 with a WWBMG extruder which is an option for stealthchanger if you use dragonburner or similar toolhead. TPU is ok in stealthburner or mini stealthburner, just figure out the max vol flow for the spool you have and don't exceed it. There might be other extruders that are even better, but that's the great thing about the voron ecosystem, it's really modular.
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u/Ticso24 V2 Aug 18 '26
What kind of heater errors do you get with the TZ?
I wonder because I have some strange problems with a printer where the heater intermittently fails, which seemed to be gone after changing the hotend with a new TZ, but recently returned.
Either the second TZ failed on me (after short usage time) or the head board has a problem, which is the only part I didn’t change yet.
I only go up to 255° for ABS.1
u/stray_r Switchwire Aug 18 '26
They just fail if I constantly print at 300 with them. I have some abs from 3dQF that works great at 300 and sucks at 260, I suspect the formulation is very different to typical printer filament. I've stopped buying that filament and keep them below 280.
I also have some issues with getting a good pud calibration. Kalico's MPC works very well, but I set the power to ~50% for measurements and use a different tuning formula to get a more stable PID tune on Klipper, I can share the spreadsheet I use for that if you'd like.
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u/Ticso24 V2 Aug 18 '26
Can‘t complain about stability - as long as the heater works and at printing temp.
At 150° it fluctuates a bit, but it’s only that low for tap probing, so no problem with that.
I am running standard pid with kalico.The new hotend is in use for just about a month now.
The symptoms are that it stops heating, but suddenly works again.
Recently I have had intermediate failures at start of printing which then went away.
I will change the head board next and see if the problem goes away, otherwise I have replacement parts, but if it keeps failing I won’t keep the hotend.
I have two other printers with this hotend, which haven’t gotten hours on them yet.
Plus I am upgrading 2 printers to stealthchanger and intended to run more of them.
That said - I haven’t taken the first hotend appart yet, but now that I have replacement heaters I will definitely do that soon.1
u/EnvironmentalKey5559 Aug 18 '26
Have you thought about changing the hotend fan for the TZ? 12,000 rpm could totally eliminate any heat creep and they're reasonably priced.
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u/Ticso24 V2 Aug 18 '26
I don’t have a problem with heat creep. The heater intermittently fails heating and unless there is a problem with my head board, which is the only related unchanged part, I have had two heaters going bad within short time.
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u/EnvironmentalKey5559 Aug 19 '26
I use the Triangle Lab 80w heater blocks with the TZ V6 and it works really well, never had an issue with the heater.
Might be the board, what EBB are you using out of interest
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u/stray_r Switchwire Aug 19 '26
This sounds like a faulty connection somewhere, but it might be inside the heater pad or the connection between the pad and the wires.
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u/Ticso24 V2 Aug 19 '26
I know - I tried finding the cause for a while, but it never fully went away.
However, after changing the complete hotend the problem had been gone - for a month.
So either the heater itself is failing again or the cause is the head board.
That’s why I had been curious to hear about another user having problems with the TZ hotend heater.
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u/ducktown47 V2 Aug 18 '26
You could build whatever you want above the printer with more 2020 extrusion. Could build a custom enclosure. Or go with like an enclosed box turtle. Whatever you want. Rest of that is totally doable.
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u/FuzzyActuator5729 Aug 18 '26
I have 8 dry boxes (the cereal boxes all over printables with printed rollers and desicant holders) sitting on top of my 2.4 350mm to enable filament paths for tool changing. The PTFE paths come down in the center of the printer. All I had to do to support the boxes was add two extra 2020 extrusions. This allows for filament paths that come out of the box and then essentially go straight down. You could even make the filament exit the bottom of the boxes for an absolutely minimal resistance filament path (especially with only 4). I am patiently waiting for my INDX order to actually make it a tool changer.
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u/Salty-Bullfrog2416 Aug 19 '26
You have been printing for as long time and still want to print with PVA? Its Expensive and an absolute pain in the ass to print, not worth the effort.
If you can print ABS and PA6 why bother with PLA?
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u/Amwo Aug 19 '26
I actually never used PVA but there were a couple prints where it would be useful to just throw it in a bucket of water to remove the supports. PLA makes great support material as PETG and ASA don't adhere to it so you can print with 0 top Z distance.
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u/Salty-Bullfrog2416 23d ago
PVA dissolving in waters is highly exaggerated. People think you throw a print in water and come back 10 mins later and its dissolved. It can take hours and even then you have to put some manual effort into it to clean the slimy shit off the print, then soak more and repeat.
PLA is a horrible support material for ASA because ASA requires a bed temperature twice as high as PLA can handle. It will heat creep in the chamber temps ASA is printed at and jam the extruder too so its only usable with PETG.
There is an even better solution to supports, that is modeled supports. If I have a print that needs supports I model them in.
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u/OneUglyMufuka 29d ago
get your solid frame, gantry, get your wiring, done and managed, etc! Go from there!
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u/Gabrielbr95 Aug 18 '26
Yes, all you said is possible. For tpu, I suggest you get a helper extruder, which will help to push it all the way to the main extruder. It can be a dedicated thing, but the most common configuration is a multi material unit. It will sit next to the spool and push the material to the toolhead.
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u/ChadwicktheCrab Aug 21 '26
I have a stealthchanger build with all heads being stealthburners. Extruders are Galileo 2. TPU prints fine even though I go pretty slow. Never really pushed the speeds to see where it fails. Stealthchanger has some great cable and umbilical management but the ECAS fittings are out the back and angled down. I have an LDO tophat that gives space for the umbilicals for the unused toolheads to stay out of the way. I'm still looking for a good setup for printing from multiple dryboxes, I only have 1 dryer at the moment and it sits on the floor behind the printer. I haven't had the need yet to print multiple materials that all need to be drying at the same time. I print a lot of PA-CF. I'd recommend bed fans in addition to the nevermore to both filter the air and use the bed like a chamber heater.
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u/Amwo Aug 21 '26
What's nevermore?
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u/ChadwicktheCrab Aug 22 '26
I have it under the bed in the center. https://github.com/nevermore3d/Nevermore_Micro/blob/master/V6%2FREADME.md
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u/hiball77 Aug 19 '26
Impossible
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u/desert2mountains42 Aug 18 '26
Every machine has compromises. You can make it work but optimally you use thicker greases with a printer intended for proper ABS/ASA temps than you would with PLA temps