8/27/2026 - 2nd Update!

well, it’s actually 1:31 AM on 8/28/2026 (yes, i just finished up the river bom stuff for today)… also, seems like, similar to spark, the strange gaps in time also exist (no ill stop disappearing for weeks. i think.)

anyways, i need to lock in on avarious things before school starts, this being one of them. my goal’s to start sometime in the september, preferably before school starts, though no promises! anyways, today’s gonna be yet another yap session, what do i have in store today?

ive been researching! at least, as far as youtube videos gets you… but yeah, lots of ideas recently!

last time we talked about the overall structure itself (scissor lift z axis, corexy, similar belting), but this time i want to talk about tool changing! here we go!

spark

• tool changing barely “worked”
  • the latch system had WAY too many parts (some fell off during transport lel)
  • the latch system required rubber bands that did not exist or could possibly exist (it needs to be kept in the middle of the track)
  • the only way it worked was if the latch had a default state in the middle (which, as just mentioned, it did not)
• the tools were MASSIVE
  • well, they’re pretty normal sized, but still, it’s not ideal
  • they also break stuff when they fell, and they were not fun to assemble
    • please no more impossible screws that need to be hand turned
• the single motor idea was pretty nice
  • however, functioning nicely is… yeah

essentially, tool changing did not really work as well as i envisioned (which was expected!). so, what’s gonna change? well, one really nice idea, as noted above, was only having a single motor, as that saved on both price and tool size. however, the sacrifices it made was not really great (this was also partially due to a bad extrusion gearing)…

but what if the filament path was its own tool? im gonna be a bit honest here, i was inspired by the INDX project, but im gonna take my own spin on it! (as in, imma still design everything myself, the only thing im borrowing is the idea of sharing the filament gearing). to be clear, the idea im borrowing is the gearing releasing the filament, swapping to the next tool, and grabbing it again (with wired, not passive heaters!)

of course, that’s a design challenge in of itself (were also probably still gonna use PLA). also during this time, ive been looking at various extruders, i came across this from triangle lab again, but im not sure if i want to stick with it, the main goal is to have a hotend that’s both compact and can get easily blasted by fans!

speaking of fans… we still need to decide on that, i havent done much research into it, but having one for each tool sound about right? anyways, the goal is still the same as spark, with 3 tools (maybe well add more if it makes sense and space allows), and maybe even a z probe? (ill be a switch lel)

anyways, for docking, we’re probably gonna use magnets. yeah, for real this time? anyways, to detach, it’ll probably be a simple latch hook- WOAH WOAH WOAH. what i meant by that is the tool going into, sliding on a screw, and detaching!

(see the rest of the logs in the image! yeah, im sorry i yap a lot lol)

anyways, it’s 2:17 AM, so yeah, for now, good night!