Taz 6 New Toolhead Carriage Conversion Mod - Use Toolheads from Taz Mini 2, Taz WE, and Taz Pro on your Taz 6 natively!

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

A'hoy'hoy!
Lulzbot has changed their toolhead design to make it a much smaller and more efficient package, thanks in large part to the Titan Aero design. If you want to use any of these new toolheads on your Taz 6, you need to either A) Buy a really overpriced and somewhat (IMO) miserable carriage adapter, or B) strip the parts off, and mount them onto your own design that will fit the 6.
I've been doing quite a bit of engineering work on the Taz 6 and Taz Pro designs as of late (for example, the Taz Pro Leadscrew conversion, or my Taz 6 that uses the Archim board which is what the Taz Pro uses to give it quiet operation), and I will be adopting the new toolhead style. I don't want to keep two different types of toolheads on hand - ones that'll only work on the 6, vs ones that will work on the Pro, or on the 6 with a crummy adapter. So I figured I'd instead design new carriage mounts (X Motor & X Idler).
These are those.
Please note the Idler assembly uses dual 625RS bearings and a different screw - it uses the same general design as the Taz Pro but with a lead screw mount. You will also need to change the connector on your E1 harness to be the new MicroFit 3 connector, and you may need to slide your bed mount 1mm to the right (I had to offset the X-Min switch 1mm to the right to provide enough clearance that I felt comfortable it would not bind in any assembly)
IMPORTANT NOTE: The new toolheads have no "X Max" switch connected on the toolhead, and the Taz Pro and Taz Workhorse don't have an X-Max located on the chassis, either. The Taz 6 expects one on the toolhead. If you use this design, you will need to do 1 of 2 things:
Jumper the "X-MAX" plug so it's always closed
Alternatively, if you don't like jumpers, mod the firmware; in the Marlin configuration.h file, comment out "#define USE_XMAX_PLUG"
This jumper or firmware mod is 100% required or the homing sequence will abort in the middle of the sequence and start dropping the head into the 4th levelling pad, rather than sliding forward to the home button.
You will also need to slightly offset the table position by adjusting the table mount. For example, on the Taz 6, the rear assembly spacer is 110mm. For this assembly, it will need to be 116mm (6mm moved towards the rear over default). Alternatively, you can mod the firmware to change the home button position. The positional changes required are very marginal and they are required because the nozzle on the new toolhead design is slightly different than the nozzle position of the original Taz 6 heads.
You're dipping into pretty heavy duty printer mod territory by taking this on. This will completely void your warranty. If you want a 100% conversion, you're going to have to change the electrical connector that terminates the end of the harness as well. All of this is something that you should only undertake if you know what you're doing. Also note, this mod will make it so that you cannot use any of the 'old' design toolheads - the toolheads that are compatible with this are the Titan Aero designs only. The single extruder v2.1 design, for example - no chance. It appears however that you may be able to use the Dual Extruder v3 on the "new" carriage design, though I'm not too sure of the specifics - the Taz Workhorse repository has a conversion plate so that owners of a Taz Workhorse can upgrade to use the Dual Extruder, but I've not tested the fit.
Use this at your own risk. I've included a version with a mount space for the Z-Max (per the original Taz 6 design), and a version without the Z-Max switch mount (in case you want to use my other thingiverse mod that adds Z-Max switches to the Z-Upper, like the Taz Pro, which is what I'll be doing). If you chose the version with the Z-Max switch mounted on the motor mount (rather than the modded uppers) than the switch mounts opposite to the way it did on the Taz 6 - instead of mounting on the back, it mounts on the front - and you run the connecting wires through the pass-thru hole. I won't be using that design, so how it fairs overall is unknown.
For the balance of the carriage parts that are required to complete this (eg, everything in this bundle not prefixed "Taz 6 Slim") are not my design - I've simply included the Carriage design files from Lulzbot's Workhorse Edition repository. These Are provided for convenience, and given the scope of license from Lulzbot, I am able to redistribute - but I am not taking credit for any of Lulzbot's design parts. For more information about Lulzbot or to access their repo, visit http://www.lulzbot.com, http://ohai.lulzbot.com, and http://download.lulzbot.com
Finally - I believe this should increase your Z print volume by a small amount, to the tune of maybe ~11mm, and the bushing design used on this (from the Taz Pro) should provide significantly less drag on the bars from warped/squeezed IGUS bushings! That should hopefully translate to more accurate, cleaner prints, with cooler running motors.
Cheers!