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I’m thinking about buying a low budget 3d printer with dual extrusion. I’ll use PVA filament as support materials. Is tevo tarantula with dual color extruder a good choice within low budget? The website lets us choose the extruder as following:

  • default
  • pro metal (flexible filaments)
  • dual color extruder
  • dual color pro metal (flexible)

should i choose dual color or go with the basic then upgrade to ‘TEVO Tarantula Dual Extruder Upgrade Full Kit Dual Extruder & cooling fan with two Nema step motor’?

I don’t have any experience about 3d printing

https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/products/2016-newest-tevo-tarantula-i3-aluminium-extrusion-3d-printer-kit-printer-3d-printing-2-rolls-filament-8gb-sd-card-lcd-as-gift?variant=15039786503

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You can go with the 4th option… I have been using Tevo Tarantula for the last 4 months and it has given me excellent results

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Don’t bother with the ‘Pro Metal’ extruder, it’s not what you think. Instead of a steel hotend, as you would expect, it’s an inferior aluminum *extruder assembly* i.e. the part that grabs the filament and forces it through the PTFE tube. I re-purposed mine and went with the stock extruder body, as it was an easier to use design and worked better anyway. The Tarantula comes with the same arduino board regardless of which version you buy, and the dual color extruder is an inferior design, using two hotends for extrusion, which is very very hard to calibrate, as each hotend needs to be exactly the same height from the build surface. My solution was to use the money I saved buying the default model, and buy an extra nema 17 stepper motor, which I used to set up a ‘Y splitter’ version of dual extrusion, much like the Prusa Multi-Material upgrade. I’ve upgraded to a custom infini-color extruder which I designed myself, which uses just those two steppers to drive as many colors as I want. I’d research those options before committing to your purchase.

P.S. with a little modification to the way the base extruder assembly works, which amounts to only a bit of trimming of the PTFE tube, the ‘default’ model can easily handle higher durometer (stiffness) flexibles, which was all I could get the pro-metal to run anyway.

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Thanks for your in depth suggestion. I don’t think I’ll be able to make custom mods like you did. According to your suggestion, I should stick to the default basic one then upgrade. Should I buy “TEVO Tarantula Dual Extruder Upgrade Full Kit Dual Extruder & cooling fan with two Nema step motor” for that?
https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/collections/tarantula-spare-parts/products/tevo-tarantula-dual-extruder-upgrade-full-kit-dual-extruder-cooling-fan-with-two-nema-step-motor
Recently I have seen another one from the company ‘zonestar’. Is it any good?
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Upgraded-Quality-High-Precision-Reprap-Prusa-i3-3d-Printer-DIY-kit-with-2-Rolls-Filament-free/1797783_32342171432.html?spm=2114.12010608.0.0.66b09975lDMDBJ
I’m confident that I can do the assembling part but not advanced modding. It will be useful if u can provide any guidance/tutorial about what you did. I couldn’t find enough resources for this but there are plenty for the high budget ones like ultimaker which I simply can’t afford.

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the 4th one is unavailable in their site mate.

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Sure, though I wouldn’t use the Chimera style hotend (https://www.google.com/search?q=chimera+hotend&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwii5KXk063YAhWBRSYKHZo4BygQ\_AUICygC&biw=1440&bih=807). It’s difficult to calibrate and leaves buggers all over your prints. Plus, it seems excessively expensive for what you really need. Here’s almost everything you need, except the extruder assembly, which they don’t seem to sell seperately: (https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/products/nema-17-3d-printers-stepper-motor-cnc-stepper-motor https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/products/pneumatic-connector-pc4-01-1-75mm-ptfe-tube-quick-coupler-feed-inlet-for-j-head-fittings-reprap-hotend-fits-3d-printer PTFE Teflon Tube 2mm ID / 4mm OD for 1.75 mm Filament – TEVOUP) If you *do* go with the dual extrusion upgrade they’re offering, it does come with the parts you need, (the extruder assembly is the blue and orange parts that bolt to the motor.) but you wouldn’t want to use the Chimera style hotend, ofc, and you’ll be buying an extra stepper motor you won’t need, at least for this project.

I’d go with something like (Dual Extrusion Y Splitter by AxMod3DPrint - Thingiverse) which is what I started with. It’s easy to print yourself and represents a significant upgrade. The latest Marlin firmware handles these splitter setups natively, though you’ll need to adjust the configuration.h file yourself. This isn’t some major custom mod, it’s just a minor one and learning how to set it up will greatly increase your knowledge and skill with the printer. I can’t say anything much about the Zonestar printer. I’d expect it’s a lot like the Tevo, but the mainboard and stepper quality could vary quite a bit. I’ve had a good time with my Tevo, so I’d tend to want to suggest them over other no-name/off-brand printers.

As for instructions; follow what’s on the Y-splitter page for tool change code for the Tevo, as it’s basically spot on. A few things to note, though: Slic3r will have *slightly* different code with regards to the ‘[old_tool] / [new_tool]’ bit, but the rest is standard G-code. You’ll also struggle with the purge blocks, as only Prusa’s version of Slic3r has decent purge block code (that I know of), but it doesn’t allow custom tool change codes. I’d suggest Simplify3d for a number of reasons, but most importantly because I can help you with that directly and because they have a ‘ooze shield’ addition which, if configured properly, will act as a great purge method.

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Thanks a lot! I don’t think I’ll use simplify3d from the very beginning as it’s a paid one. Your information is very helpful to me & thanks again for your elaborated explanation.