FT-5 Dual E3D V6 Bowden Gantry

thingiverse

Here's my take on a dual extruders for my FolgerTech FT-5. The Gantry itself is fairly basic. Two E3D V6 heat sink mounts 25mm apart, recessed and rounded posts for the GT2 belt, sunken nut captures all-around. The cooling fan attachment was a bit of work. It takes two standard 40mm fans and has fairly effective part cooler vents as well. I also modelled a 'hat' that fits on top for securing the cabling. I don't use a cable chain however the screw holes should match. Some notes: Head alignment can be a huge pain. The gantry has the heat sinks exactly 25mm apart on the X axis and no delta on the Y however depending on the exact shapes of your heatsinks (eg: two different clones or originals) and how you torqued the screws can throw it off by a mm or two. I was at 26x.3 offsets for my test prints. Z alignment can be even more tricky. I originally shimmed each bolt using washers but that was not precise enough. Then pieces of card but that was a huge pain. What I found worked best was to put two layers of felt between the gantry and the slider then torque them down all the way. Slightly loosen the lower under until they line up. I ended up using two different clones and two different extruders (a Titan and a direct) so had to tweak and tune a LOT to even get passable prints. That wasn't due to the gantry though. Everything seemed solid and it was Cura and Simplify 3D that drove me crazy. I'm moving dual extrusion to my i3 and keeping the FT-5 as a high-speed, high-temp workhorse. Don't expect many more improvements to this but I'm happy to provide the steps if someone wanted to make some tweaks. I top mounted the filament spools and motors. Here is the thing for the motor mounts: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1357814. I created extra tall and extra solid arms to hold the spools on a 5/16 threaded rod. Also have some washers for 5/16 nuts as well.