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« on: June 17, 2023, 01:31:14 AM »
Hi Peter,
It is going to require a great deal of thought, work and research - it would not be for the faint hearted, but it can be done and when you look back on the project at some future date it will probably all seem quite simple.
Easy enough to create the outline and infill toolpaths with Vectric but in order to extrude a material of consistent thickness / volume you will need near perfect ‘constant velocity’ from your moving axes. To help achieve this the design mass of each moving axis should be kept to a bare minimum throughout the build so start out with just one extruder / colour and learn how to control a rotary axis (driving an extruder) which is speed linked with the moving X,Y linear axis speed. I have not tried it but the creation of this type of GCode may well be beyond the remit of a Vectric toolpath and you may need to look towards something like 3D slicing software. Cura, just for example, will break down an infill toolpath into matched linear and rotary movements and then produce the necessary GCode which can then be run with Mach (although some minor adjustments may be necessary to match the GCode style).
Once you have one extruder / colour working correctly additional extruders can be added and selected via a Tool Change within your GCode file. There will be some electronic work required for selecting the drive requirements of each separate extruder but it should not be too complicated.
Good fortune with your project.
Tweakie.