Recreator 4X4

I was having issues with making enough PET filament, and making it fast enough for my various projects, which I should probably upload on here too.  I only print in PET plastic that I recycle from bottles so I needed a way to make more filament.

I realized on average that my prints were taking around 30 metres of filament to complete, and since each bottle that I use (tonic water) produces on average 6 metres of useable filament, I decided to throw together a 4X4 rig.  

The gist of the build is this:  Klipper supports 4 stepper Z axis configurations.  I am exploiting this feature by running 4 steppers in parallel as a fake Z axis, and effectively telling the printer to heat up 4 extruders and home Z forever and ever :)

I have greatly reinforced the Recreator's models to handle the increased torque, and I have added the capacity for the use of thrust washers on the spool, which help facilitate the pulling process.  

The gears for the stepper and the idler are joined through the middle brackets using M5 threaded rod and a bit of crazy glue for locktite - this ensures all four motors can pull together at the same time.

This build uses everything from the OG Recreator MK5 build and:

1. My Extra STL files(my motor brackets are flipped, so you might want to un-flip them in your slicer if you need to)
2. M5 threaded rod
3. An extra ender 3 board to run the extra 2 hot ends
   • or maybe possibly 2 mosfets would work
4. A 40mm fan from an Ender 3, and the four super long M3 bolts that hold the plastic bracket to the X stepper.  These bolts screw my fan bracket into the board.
5. Klipper :D
6. Thrust washers (not necessary but I like them)
7. The bottom 2 4040 extrusions from a scrap Ender 3 printer
8. 3 2020 extrusions
   • 2 for the added steppers and spool
   • 1 for the 4 hot ends
9. Metal corner brackets
   • 4 to hold the hot ends
   • 16 for all of the corners of all of the various extrusions
   • buy like 30 or 40 of these to be safe, you will always need them
10. Lots of M5 t slot hex bolts and hardware, buy a kit or two on Amazon

KLIPPER STUFF:

printer.cfg.txt and pullingtime.cfg.txt:

rename these to .cfg and use these either for your config or an example, this will set you up with the 4 hot ends and 4 steppers, plus the macro to pull a bottle, which is based on the original SD card files from the MK5

4X4 - Four times the bottles and four times the fun!