Hello,
I am trying to figure out which printer with multi-color capabilities to buy, and I’d like to hear some other people’s opinions.
Note: I can’t buy Bambu Labs products, so please do not recommend one.
Current options:
- Prusa Mk4 and MMU3.
- Voron 2.4-style (either Formbot kit or Sovol SV08) and ERCF, and eventually DAKSH toolchanger.
- Ratrig V4 and the upgrades when they come out.
- Creality K2 Plus (when it comes out).
- Qidi Q1 Pro and the rumored multi-color unit.
My current thoughts:
- I am happy wait a bit if that’s the best option.
- I like the fact that the MMU3 mechinism doesn’t waste as much filament as some other mechanisms. It’s easier for me to pay more up front for the mechanism than constantly keeping tons extra filament in stock.
- The potential for a Voron to be upgraded to a toolchanger with DAKSH is intising.
- High print quality is important to me, although I can’t imagine any of these would result in bad quality.
- Prusa XL is outside my budget :(
Please let me know your opinions, and thank you to anybody who read this far.
I like to do a large variety of prints. Small, big, batch, even using separate filament for support. So yes, I expect to use lots of purged filament, but I don’t think that is really avoidable.
I agree that tool changers are probably the endgame. However, given that the Prusa XL is the only one on the market, and no other brand has even announced anything, I think its going to be at least two years before an affordable high-quality tool changer hits the market. I think these are my options in the mean time.
I do know about the DAKSH, but given that it’s an early community project, don’t think that will be ready any sooner.
How quickly do you need to get a setup going? The way I like to approach these kinds of things (printers, computers, etc) is to get a good platform that will support what you want to do in the future even if it can’t do it now. If you’re thinking about a DAKSH setup on a voron, I would build the voron now with the DAKSH in mind and build that add-on when it’s more available.
What I would be trying to avoid is getting something like the ERCF and then getting buyer’s (builder’s?) remorse if significant progress on the DAKSH is made shortly after. Yes, the ERCF let’s you print multi-filament NOW, and you could theoretically use it with a voron and then upgrade it to a DAKSH system later, but if you invest in that approach, you likely won’t want to rebuild your setup for a multi-tool setup.
All of this is assuming that you care about the other benefits of multi-tool, which of course you may or may not. If all that’s important is multiple filaments with relatively similar properties, just get whatever is in your price range and you feel comfortable toying with. If multi-tool interests you at all and you don’t need something right away, I’d build something with that in mind and feel out the progress before making a final decision.