Is the tiny E3D Revo Roto extruder really enough?

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E3D Revo Roto & Hemera:

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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:08 Sponsor
1:44 Unboxing
2:50 Tech overview
10:37 Test setup
11:47 Initial results
13:50 Final results discussion
15:34 Caveats: 0.6mm HF nozzle
18:43 Conclusion

[Kaliumcyanidful]

The stall of the roto is caused by the stepper driver: stealthchop only supports 300rpm. Use spreadcycle for up to 3000. (trinamic drivers)

[jalbani]

Tom, your test rig might be at fault for that 0.6mm nozzle result. Check if the tmc2208 driver is in stealthchop mode. That mode caps around 300rpm and motor just stalls. You should set the driver to spread cycle mode for higher speeds. That tiny nema 14 motor needs to spin quite fast to get job done.

[kilianlindlbauer]

My guess on why the roto stalled is the stepper driver. It looks like you plugged in some fysetc tmc2208/tmc2209, those run in stealthchop by default, which puts a pretty hard rotational speed limit on the stepper. Doesn't help that the roto uses a 0, 9° stepper in that case. Try some a4988 or swap to spreadcycle if you haven't done that. That removes the speed limit. My theory is backed up by the fact that the other extruders have roughly 400 steps per mm at 16 microsteps, the roto would be much closer to 1200 when taking a orbiter or sherpa mini as reference. Otherwise it doesn't make sense to stall that early as other small extruders can go much further than the roto, fot example it doesn't matter really if you are using a sherpa mini or a bmg, both have enough torque to loose traction

[earthwormjim]

Thom, you need to issue a correction and retest the Roto. For any high speed stepper, such as the pancake stepper used by the Roto, you need to disable stealth chop on your stepper drivers. The time between steps will be too short, which due to a bug or design flaw, triggers a false over current fault in the stepper driver.

I encountered the same issue on my Orbiter V2 on my Ender 3. At high speed printing, or with linear advance enabled, the motor would stall at random. Disabling stealth chop fixed this issue.

[fromaflafl]

pleas use mm^3/s insted of mm/s. it's way easier to understand and compare to other setups

[wikfue]

for reference (according to my math), 6mm/s with a 1.75mm diameter filament is roughly 14.5mm^3/s. That makes about 180mm/s (theoretical) on a 0.4mm extrusion width, and 0.2mm layer height

[belladonnaRoot]

Tbh, I love it. I've always thought that the extruder motors for most printers were massively oversized (though a common size). Your testing proved that point; the revo-roto's the only extruder that isn't massively overspec'd for a .4 nozzle. So for printers that don't plan on going over .4mm nozzle, this is probably the simplest, smallest extruder out there that might allow them to reduce the size of other drive components.
And it probably stalls because stepper motors have a hard speed limit; over a certain RPM they can't switch steps fast enough, and instead just oscillate between steps. Microstepping helps, but there is a limit.

[kevinroosa]

I’ve had issues with stealthchop/interpolation causing motor stall on my 2208s (weirdly enough, not the 2209s) with 0.9deg motors.

[danielpolders]

Would this hot-end extruder be light enough (at 140 gr) to make a Prusa Mini a direct drive printer? That could help with flexible filaments, right?

[tec]

If the stepper driver was limiting the motor in your review, I think we'd deserve an update video that more accurately represents the benefits and flaws of the product. Many people might not want to buy the product because they don't want or can't modify their stepper drivers, but that's a different message than "the motor can't handle that"

[PJCDP]

I have been able to get consistent extrusion of 100mm of ESUN PLA+ (at 225 degrees Celsius) filament at a feed rate of 645mm/min. 0.6 Revo HF nozzle, 60w heater core. Roto stepper running in SpreadCycle at 350Ma with default 0.9 chopper timing. (Marlin)

[AaronBlankenship]

This is exactly the type of testing and demonstration I expect from manufacturers. E3d should 100% contract you to show these testings of their products. There is no reason to hide anything. Endorsements don't need to be done, you are a quality product tester whose services should be recognized.

[TNX]

Really interesting extruder! I do agree that the glossy diecast surface of the aluminum is not really much to my liking either. Some feedback about the video:
While measuring the actual feedrate of the extruder in mm/s is valid and justified because that is literally the figure used in G-code, most of us never need to know it in practice. I think mm3/s or actual achievable printing speed in mm/s would be much more useful info.

[Kotvic]

It looks like E3D took inspiration from Orbiter extruder and then made it as small as they physically can.

This product has its use cases, where they will be excellent choice, but users must accept its limits. This combo will be great upgrade for bedslingers with flimsy Z axis (yes, Prusa Mini or Ender 3 V2). On fast CoreXY printers, it can be interesting mainly for its easy nozzle changes, but combo of Orbiter extruder and some high flow hotend (Mosquito Magnum) can do it's job better.

[wktodd]

What Voltage were you running the motors? I assume 24v, so I am wondering what it might be able to do with a higher voltage drive.

[joshuaguberman]

I wonder if you could bump up the extrusion force by increasing the run current to the 0.85a recommended for the Orbiter V2. Granted, the Orbiter doesn't have an integrated hotend heatsink which means the motor is probably staying cooler than the same motor running in a Roto form factor, but something like the "turbiter" (an optional fan that sits on the outer face of the Orbiter NEMA 14 to provide cooling when printing in a heated chamber) might help with this. I can't find any information on what specific stepper motor the Roto uses, but the Orbiter V2 at recommended current has pretty exceptional extrusion force for its size/motor type. The creator of the Orbiter V2 has a blogpost that explains why, despite 0.85a seeming like a high run current and making the motor hot to the touch, stepper motors can function well at much higher temps than we normally use in 3D printing, and the limiting factor in the Orbiter is actually the melting/deformation point of the delrin gears. Maybe (assuming they use different steppers) you'd have to swap out the Roto motor with one more similar to the Orbiter V2 motor for best results, though. I'd be really interested to see some tests that look into this!

[kazolar]

The choice of 0.9 degree stepper is an odd one, 0.9 comparison same for same have lower high end torque, with such high gearing, resolution isn't an issue, so why 0.9? Would be interesting to compare it with one of the popular bondtech geared extruder diy mods -- i.e sherpa mini and derivatives like the hextrudort. The size of the sherpa and the like is similarly small, but the gearing isn't as intense + use of a standard LDO 1.8 degree nema 14 round stepper would likely outperform this. You can see Vez pushing a lot more plastic than ~15mm^3 sec on the vzbot.

[olafmarzocchi]

Strange results, since the Sherpa mini uses the same motor, similar gearing (8.x:1) and current (0.35A) and it can reach well above 30 mm3/s

[JonS]

What about TPU? The LGX Lite has a lower tension position for TPU. The Revo Roto appears to only have one tension.

[osmanpasha_diy]

Could you also compare with Orbiter, Sherpa and other Nema 14 extruders? Yes, they lack heatsink, but still interesting.