Inductive / pogo path changers

Only the heat break and nozzle travel. The heater and thermistor cross the joint through spring pins or by inductive control, so nothing is plugged in by hand.

Pros

• Smallest and, in theory, cheapest tools of the filament path changers.
• No cable to route or manage per tool.
• Induction heating is very fast.

Cons

• The contact has to carry heater current for thousands of cycles.
• Dirt or oxide at the interface shows up as a heating fault.
• Gears have to open and re-engage filament path every time.
• More challenging for flexible materials than conventional toolchangers.
• Cannot preheat tools.
• Inductive heating requires steel blocks which have lower thermal conductivity.
• Inductive heating requires IR monitoring of temperature — which is less precise and reliable than a thermistor.
• Extruder places variable load on kinematic coupling.

Systems