Welcome to the SMuFF project!
On this site I share my knowledge around the SMuFF, a versatile and modular tool for multi material 3D printing
In a nutshell
The SMuFF (Smart Multi Filament Feeder / Extruder) is a highly scalable tool for multi-color / multi-material 3D printing. It enables you using the same base model from 3 up to 12 materials because of its modular nature. You can start off with a 3 materials machine and upgrade it to support more materials at a later stage. Simply replace / add a few components.
It's able to replace your standard extruder drive gear and make it a "Bondtech™ style" dual gear extruder, with all the benefits the advanced gears will bring you (i.e. better filament transport and thus faster printing or printing flexibel materials on a bowden style system).
The SMuFF runs it's own controller (SKR mini board) and has a GCode interpreter built in which makes interfacing a breeze. Thus, it supports all major 3D printer platforms, namely Marlin, RRF, OctoPrint and Klipper. All you need is one spare UART serial port on your 3D printer or a spare USB port on your Raspberry Pi for the communication.
How does it work?
The SMuFF can handle different operating modes. In the most popular mode, it replaces your bowden style extruder on your printer.
When a tool change is pending, it uses the Selector to switch between the filaments, then it uses the Feeder to load this particular filament down to the nozzle. From here, the 3D printer takes over and prints as usual. As soon as a layer / material has finished, the SMuFF retracts the loaded filament, selects the next one, feeds it and the print continues.
Do you really need it?
Before you start working on this project, ask yourself whether you really need such a tool. Also, ask yourself whether your skills are sufficient for this task.
Be warned: This project is challenging, even for experienced makers!
Everything else you need to know about this gadget, you'll find in the navigation bar or via the integrated search function.
See what's
cooking...
cooking...
The SMuFF is being constantly updated with either new hardware or new firmware to improve it further and add more value to it. All of this is documented under "Work in Progress" (a.k.a. Development Blog).
