Online 3D printer retailer Creatr posted information about a new conversion kit that they designed that would allow an Ultimaker 2 3D printer to be upgraded with an all metal dual extruder. In a post on the Ultimaker community forums, nineteen year old Italian engineer Sam Bianchi Bazzi posted details about his forthcoming upgrade kit for the popular 3D printer.
The extruder nozzles are all bronze, and because the entire kit is full metal it is an ideal printer head to use for high temperature materials like ABS, HIPS and polycarbonates. Of course because of the all metal extruder that also means that you probably shouldn’t use PLA on the printer, so it is a bit of a trade-off. The kit will come with an installation guide as well as full instructions on upgrading the Ultimaker 2 firmware that allows the dual extruder to be fully supported.
Currently the printing head has been tested to reach stable operating temperatures in excess of 350°C, so you will have a very wide array of materials to choose from other than PLA. The kit will also include two side mounted fans that can easily be turned on and off depending on how much you need to cool your printing models. While Bazzi did not have a final price available for the kit, he did estimate that it would cost about $311. The kit is expected to be released before Christmas.
You will be sacrificing some build volume with this extruder simply because the Ultimaker 2’s X axis can’t really be altered by the firmware. However it has been designed so the extruders are only 18 mm apart from each other, which isn’t really that much real estate to lose in exchange for dual extruders. Bazzi does note that if you use it as a single extruder then the printer will reach its stock build volume.
While Creatr is an official Ultimaker reseller, this is, of course, not an official Ultimaker product, so be careful that installing it won’t void any warranties or service contracts that you have on your machine. Rather curiously, considering Ultimaker 3D printers are open source, Bazzi has not chosen to release his nozzle as open source hardware. He states that he’s worried about his work being copied and lower cost versions sold, but that’s likely to happen anyway.
If you want to find out more information you can read through the entire thread on the Ultimaker community forums.
