Z Hopping To Prevent Batch Failures & Multi Color Same Layer Printing

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In todays video we take a look at z hopping. Z hopping is a slicer setting that when enabled will cause your z to lift every time you have a retraction. This can be sued to prevent the nozzle from crashing into warping parts as well as to do cool things like multiple color printing on the same layer. In todays video we take a look at how to enable it and see it in action.

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NEREUS - Lotus

[Killa_Prints]

Love Z hop. Use it nearly every print.
A tip: you could just comment out the part of your end gcode that turns off bed heat. This would make it so you don't have to be next to the printer when it finishes the first color print. Might be helpful on a longer print or multiple color swaps. Love the videos on stuff like this!

[GeekDetour]

Z-Hop for the win - I ALWAYS use it. Excellent video, I found the multi-color in same layer very interesting, need to try!

[DMusketeers]

Z Hop is THE BEST! I am not worried about the extra minutes of the z hop as it is cheap insurance on the part itself.

[BenRyherd]

For the alignment, ideally you should model mating parts in the same coordinate system, then you can ctrl-A to select all and then right click and select "Merge". Then orient your print the way you want it, right click un-group and then delete all but one color, then CTRL-Z to undo until you have your colors back and then delete all but a different color. Then you're not manually aligning.

Also, sometimes it looks like they won't merge properly but they still will, I'd always try merging them before giving up and manually aligning them.

[asulliv]

WoW I can’t believe this it just happened to me 10 minutes ago my tip hit my build and moved it off the build plate I wish I knew about Z hop 20 minutes ago!Thank You that’s why I always look for your channel!

[Spartacusse]

Lost in Tech's video from a few months after this says the filament stickiness when starting a layer is much more likely to pull off a print than the nozzle bumping/scraping. Great video either way.

[JonS]

Oh, nice! I really like this approach to multi-color inlays. I'd never thought of it before. Thanks for the tip.

[BenRyherd]

Word of warning, be careful upping the z hop speed on a leadscrew machine. I just tried doing so for the first time the other day and managed to accidentally guess the exact value that a third of the way through the print the steppers didn't have enough oomph to travel that speed going up, but they did going down so it kept going back down. It crashed the head into the bed, and then into the side of the part bending the heatbreak and ruining a revo nozzle (ouch...)

[wolffin]

Honestly had never tried Z-hop until I got my tiny kingroon kp3s and the default profile had it enabled, when it first started hopping I thought WTH then I noticed it was actually helpful. Thanks for another great video, your tips are awesome 👌 👏 👍

[yuripolak]

I never used it until I assembled a switchwire... Now I'm in love.. Mainly because SW is really fast on z movements, so z hop makes much more sense

[BenRyherd]

Sorry to spam the comments, but I recently developed a workflow to allow you to do these "multiple colors on the same layer" on the top or in the middle of the model.

When you model your parts make sure to export them with the global coordinate system to make merging easier.

The issue you generally run into with multicolor in the middle or top of the part is that those "floating parts" cura insists on dropping (regardless of preference settings) to the build surface unless you use support (which you also don't want). To get around this, you model a small feature for each color on the base layer so that base feature keeps cura from dropping the main part down to the build plate and you don't have to use support.

[MakerBees]

I have a box of failure in the garage dedicated to the time printing before I found Z-hop. It is definitely required on some printers… for better or worse it was the one I quite literally picked at random because they looked like a fun hobby but I didn’t want to labor over the best price and endless features before I even got my hands on one.

[JeanBrito]

I cant make Z hop work in small perimeters, the stringing is enormous. But on big perimeters it works very well. For things like wolverine claws, Z-hop don't have enough perimeter to stabilize the pressure, then it gives a lot of ooze. On mechanic parts, that tend to be more squared and bump on some materials, than Z-hop is a no brainer.

[bridgetclinch]

Yeah always z hopping, haven't used it for this style of multicolour but I will now, thanks

[bowieinc]

I love when you give us another tool for our arsenal. Great Video!

[EdGodoyPlana]

I have not tried it but I will certainly try it out! Thanks!

Great video!

[kylezakk]

I was having issues with the nozzle dragging on my print with my Sovol SV06 plus. Z-hop @ 0.4mm seems to help, I didn't realize the downsides. Thanks for the info!

[stuartwilliams]

Hi thanks for this video, I have been looking for a while how to solve a problem I had with two tall objects, and this is the solution I was looking for they kept knocking over but I did not how to solve it, again thanks, love your videos easy to follow for a novice

[nemesis_]

Knowing your craft and tools available - Thanks

[capthowdy]

i use z hope in almost all cases. i can barely remember ever going in an turning it off since i started using it.