When single shade printing will get boring, you may have choices. The Kywoo3D Tycoon IDEX is a big format 3d printer with two separate software heads. IDEX stands for Impartial Twin Extruders, a fancy system that prints in two colours with out the necessity for a wasteful purge tower between shade swaps. It could additionally print in a single shade or print two fashions without delay.
Retailing at $899, the Tycoon IDEX has two direct drive toolheads, a BL Contact fashion auto leveling system and an enormous 300 x 300 mm construct plate. Sadly, numerous that actual property is chewed up by parking area for the software heads. The max construct quantity for twin shade printing is 220 X 300 X 350 mm and in mirror mode the width shrinks to 120 mm per mannequin.
The Tycoon IDEX is a gigantic machine in comparison with the scale of prints it could make, one thing to think about when on the lookout for a spot to set it up. Its consumer expertise doesn’t all the time match these of the greatest 3D printers, however for those who’re all in favour of exploring twin head printing, this machine is an efficient place to start out.
Specs: Kywoo3D Tycoon IDEX
| Machine Footprint | 671 x 514 x 760 mm (26.4 x 20.2 x 29.9 inches) |
| Construct Quantity, Single Shade | 260 x 300 x 350 mm (10.2 x 11.8 x 13.78 inches) |
| Construct Quantity, Two Shade | 220 x 300 x 350 mm (8.6 x 11.8 x 13.78 inches) |
| Construct Quantity, Duplication Mode | 150 x 300 x 350 mm (5.9 x 11.8 x 13.78 inches) |
| Construct Quantity, Mirror Mode | 120 x 300 x 350 mm (4.7 x 11.8 x 13.78 inches) |
| Materials | PLA/PETG/ABS/TPU/Water Soluble |
| Extruder Kind | Direct Drive |
| Nozzles | .4mm (Interchangeable) |
| Filament Runout Sensor | Sure |
| Mattress Leveling | Automated |
| Mattress Floor | Coated Glass |
| Connectivity | SD Card |
| Interface | Shade Contact Display screen |
The Kywoo3D Tycoon IDEX comes with every little thing you should get began: instruments to construct and keep the printer, aspect cutters, a metallic scraper, nozzle cleaner, zip ties, and a full measurement SD card with a USB adapter. You additionally get two spare nozzles and a two 250 kg reels of PLA in black and white.
There’s a paper copy of the handbook, plus a video on methods to assemble the machine on the SD card. The cardboard additionally has six single shade pattern fashions and three two-color pattern fashions, take a look at prints, a PDF copy of the handbook, a replica of Cura 4.9 and a number of other profiles.
The Kywoo3D Tycoon IDEX ships largely assembled and solely wants its two halves bolted collectively. The items are reasonably massive and ponderous, however because of the Tycoon’s boxy form, it’s not too troublesome to handle. The spool holders mount on the highest of the machine with screws.
Wiring is tremendous easy and also you solely must make two connections: plug within the Y-Axis motor and the hotbed wires.
Earlier than beginning your printer, you’ll must verify the voltage setting – it must be at 110 for U.S. households. Use a hex key to push the swap.
Kywoo3D consists of an meeting video on the SD card, however that is one printer the place the written instructions are extremely straightforward to comply with.
Leveling the Kywoo3D Tycoon IDEX
The Tycoon IDEX comes with a BL Contact fashion probe and is tremendous easy to stage. It’s arduous mounted to the Y-Axis rails, so there aren’t any knobs to twiddle.
Once I first leveled the Tycoon IDEX, it had a little bit of hassle going by means of your entire sample, however that was simply solved by doing a firmware replace. Reminder: all the time verify for firmware updates.
The display screen interface is a bit cryptic. To achieve the leveling command, it’s important to faucet the X, Y, Z coordinates in the course of the primary menu. Now press the House icon. Then press the Degree button.
The probe is connected to the first software head and ranges for each. It’ll faucet the mattress in 16 locations. I discovered the leveling to be fairly correct and didn’t have a necessity to regulate the Z top.
Loading filament could be very straight ahead. First, preheat the nozzles (one or each) by tapping the nozzle icons on the primary menu and drag the slider to your required temperature. Hitting the proper quantity with a contact display screen slider is a bit like hitting the proper observe on a trombone. Fortunately, you’ll be able to alter your numbers with the plus and minus buttons. Press the verify mark to set the temperature.
Pull your filament down from the spool holder, thread it by means of the run out sensor positioned simply above the extruder and poke it into the extruder. Then advance the extruder by twisting the entrance mounted wheel clockwise.
To unload filament, merely reverse the method.
The Kywoo3D Tycoon IDEX is a really vibrant, very sq., very massive machine constructed of sheet metallic towers and little sheet metallic bins across the software heads. Its black and yellow paint job stands out in a crowd of spindly open body 3D printers.
Sadly, the design isn’t distinctive and seems to borrow closely from the LulzBot TAZ, a machine 3 times its worth. The towers conceal the Z axis rods, the ability module and circuit boards. These towers are solely three sided, and flashing pink lights from the motherboard generally makes it appear to be a tiny firetruck is parked inside.
The mattress is difficult mounted to 2 broadly spaced Y-axis rods for stability. The X-axis slides on a properly greased linear rail. It additionally has twin Z rods synced with a belt that runs beneath the construct plate. The entire thing makes for a really steady, very regular construct floor.
The construct floor is coated glass that grips like loopy. Most prints wanted a little bit of chisel and hammer to steer them to launch.
The Tycoon IDEX has silent stepper motors and very-quiet followers. Nevertheless, all that silent operating is canceled out by the disturbing squeaks and clanks made by this all metallic machine. Most regarding is when the software heads get confused and ram into one another like they’re taking part in demolition derby. A few of that could be consumer error – like once I forgot to house the machine earlier than operating a mattress stage.
The software heads park off to the perimeters, crossing over a silicone scraper that knocks oozing bits of filament off the nozzle earlier than they go to work. The heads calm down whereas parked so that you don’t get globs of wasted filament.
We have now to speak concerning the measurement of this printer, which appears overly massive for the scale of prints it creates. It is over 2 ft huge and nearly 3 ft tall together with the spool holders. It’s additionally a beefy 36 kilos – these handles mounted on prime don’t make it transportable. In the event you’re brief on area, this is probably not printer for you.
Getting ready Information / Software program
Kywoo3D features a vanilla copy of Cura 4.9, however there isn’t a built-in profile. As a substitute, the instructions stroll you thru organising the printer from scratch. That is no small feat as a result of every of the 4 modes must be handled as a separate printer.
PrusaSlicer likewise doesn’t have a setting for the Tycoon IDEX, however I discovered it did a significantly better job dealing with two shade prints.
For instance, to arrange Twin-Shade mode, you make a customized printer with 2 nozzles and plug within the measurement. For a two shade print the scale is 220 x 300 x 350 mm. Then it’s important to add a particular Begin G-Code and add an additional line on the Finish G-Code. This course of is repeated for single shade, duplication mode and mirror mode.
Duplication and Mirror Modes solely use half the width, with every software head taking a measurement. You arrange the print like all extraordinary single shade machine, and the Tycoon IDEX routinely prints two. In Duplication mode it makes an actual copy and in Mirror Mode it’s flipped.
In Cura for Twin Shade mode, you should discover a mannequin that’s damaged into shade by the designer. Every half is assigned to an extruder, then the elements are merged. You’ll have two extruders to arrange within the print settings, so make sure you change the values on every. It is attainable to have barely totally different settings for every software head – they’ll go at totally different speeds, temperatures and have totally different numbers of partitions or infill. The one factor you’ll be able to’t change is the layer top, which routinely stays the identical for every.
PrusaSlicer has extra flexibility for 2 shade printing and means that you can “paint” a mannequin. This implies you’ll be able to take a single shade mannequin and thoroughly apply a second shade to it. PrusaSlicer appears higher tuned for two-color prints, and I had significantly better outcomes with it.
Printing with the Kywoo3D Tycoon IDEX
I often begin with the pre-sliced take a look at mannequin and the supplied pattern filament. I picked the one two shade pre-sliced file, the Twin-Shade Sq., and about three hours later I obtained this wonderful dice. It’s a little bit stringy in locations, however there’s no shade bleeding. That is made with supplied black and white PLA.
Subsequent I printed a Cali-Dragon by McGybeer. The designer gives each single shade and multicolor information for this cute little take a look at print. Because it’s very small, it shouldn’t take numerous time. That is once I discovered that the 2 shade profiles despatched by Kywoo3D weren’t properly tuned.
Every print has stringing, plus there have been lumps and blobs the place it modified colours. Cura stated this may print in 46 minutes, however with the additional time to swap heads, every print took nearer to 2 hours. These are printed in Matterhackers Construct Sequence Blue PLA, Construct Sequence Pink PLA. The center one is Matterhacker’s Inexperienced and White Quantum (opens in new tab) and Locyfens Shiny Silk Rainbow (opens in new tab).
I’ve all the time wished to print a Wekster Mini Dude in shade, and Darth Maul appeared like a sensible choice. He wants greater than two colours, however the true drawback got here all the way down to tuning the IDEX. I struggled with Cura settings for some time, and finally switched to PrusaSlicer and obtained one thing roughly first rate.
I’m positive it could look higher with a finer layer top, however that is actually one of the best I may do. Even after a number of makes an attempt, my Darth has tough layers, wisps and blobs the place it switched toolheads. This was made at a .2 layer setting and tipped again at a 45-degree angle with helps. It took round 5 hours to print. That is printed in Matterhackers Construct Sequence Pink PLA with Protopasta Recycled Black PLA.
I took a break from two shade printing to check out Mirror Mode. Since I jumped instantly into two shade printing, I used to be really shocked at how good the only shade high quality is regardless of the stringing. This Calibration Cat and its doppelgänger had been printed at .2 layer top and 60mms in 46 minutes in Printerior Purple and Protopasta Recycled Nonetheless Colourful 11.
Subsequent was a Duplication print. I grabbed a Clockspring vase mode print and ran it at a .2mm layer top and 65mms. It printed in 2 hours and 27 minutes. These two prints turned out sturdy with silky easy layers. That is Matterhackers Construct Sequence Translucent Orange PETG (opens in new tab) and Keene Village Edge Glow Glass PETG.
I used to be able to sort out two shade printing once more and thought this superior Obi-Wan’s Twin Extrusion Lightsaber by 3D Printing World can be well worth the problem. PrusaSlicer actually got here by means of with this one. It’s nonetheless a little bit wobbly in spots, however this print exhibits that the Tycoon IDEX can do a two shade print properly when you may have a properly tuned slicer. The deal with is printed in Matterhackers Silver Professional Sequence (opens in new tab) and Protopasta Recycled PLA Nonetheless Colourful 11 at a .2 layer top and 60mms. The blade is printed in vase mode with a .2 layer top and 65mms in Matterhackers Translucent Blue PETG. (opens in new tab)
This two shade Princess Vase by Abby Math was not printed in vase mode. The interior vase is printed with 2 partitions for extra translucence, whereas the outer vase is printed with 3 partitions. This actually turned out nice with barely any stringing. I’ve added twinkle lights to the within only for enjoyable. Printed in Keene Village Edge Glow Glass PETG and IC3D Translucent Blue Razz with a .2 layer top and 65 mms velocity.
The final print I’d prefer to share is that this actually cool Trunk of an Previous Tree by Thorin Oakenshield. No two will ever be alike as a result of it’s important to go discover your personal stick. The stump is printed at a .2 layer top in Protopasta Recycled PLA Nonetheless Colourful 11 and Inland Brown PLA (opens in new tab). The leaves are Emerald Metropolis Inexperienced Silk from Polyalchemy Elixir with Inland Brown PLA stems. The leaves are glued into place.
Backside Line
The Kywoo3D Tycoon IDEX makes wonderful single shade prints, but it surely takes time and tuning to get good two shade outcomes. I used to be dissatisfied that Kywoo3D didn’t ship a greater Cura profile to make its printer carry out at its greatest. Cura wasn’t a lot assist both, so I actually suggest going straight to PrusaSlicer to keep away from complications.
At $899, the Tycoon IDEX is an enormous funding. However when you think about the price of including multicolor functionality to a single shade printer, it evens out. At present, the most suitable choice so as to add multicolor printing to a single shade machine is the Mosaic Palette 3 (opens in new tab), a tool that prices $900 and might splice 8 totally different strands of filament. Prusa customers even have the choice of including a $300 MMU equipment to their machines for five shade printing.
At its coronary heart, The Tycoon IDEX is a superb high quality direct drive printer with a barely quirky interface. Not like extraordinary printers, this one has a number of enjoyable tips up its sleeve – it could print smaller fashions twice as quick in duplicate mode and make fascinating mirror picture prints. Sadly, the one factor it’s meant to do – print in two colours – is missing.
In the event you’re extra all in favour of a big single shade printer that doesn’t waste an inch of construct plate, take a look at the $499 Anycubic Kobra Plus our decide for Finest Massive Format 3D Printer. And for those who’re on the lookout for a full-featured finances printer, take a look at the Elegoo Neptune 3, accessible for preorder for $209.99 and our alternative for Finest Price range FDM printer.
