Seems like Bambu Lab has a new trick for reducing waste. Rather than a toolchanger like the Prusa XL or the Snapmaker, they’re swapping just the nozzle. As far as I can tell from the video, the printer still has a second nozzle which won’t swap in and out, meaning a print can be run with 7 nozzles (six from the Vortek system, plus the second nozzle in the toolhead). So if you’re using 7 or fewer filaments, no pooping is necessary.
The cool bit here is that they’re using wireless chips in the nozzles to communicate the thermistor data to the printer, so no pin-based connections are needed.
Pretty cool solution, I think. I assume you’d still need a prime tower, but that’s a small amount of waste if they’re eliminating poop from purging the nozzles.
I’m curious to see how they’ll handle calibration, surely the nozzles aren’t all going to be perfectly aligned all the time.
Who do you like instead?
I’m personally keeping an eye on Prusa. They’re working on a new multi-filament system for their new Core One printer and it might be worth the wait.
It is pricier because it is made in Europe but at least the company has a solid reputation for quality, repairability, consumer respect, and more ethical business practices than whatever enshitification hell Bambu is heading down the road towards.
Check out Bondtech Indx and regret buying anything else
Sounds kinky
Be aware that old Joe Prusa even says that open source printing is dead at this point.
So I would expect to see even Prusa locking their new ideas away behind patents.
Not to be that guy but prusa’s latest is not fully open source either
Anybody who uses regular open-source firmware and doesn’t try to circumvent copyleft, and especially ones who actively give back to the community. Prusa, Creality, Elegoo, etc. Also, DIY/non-commercial projects like Voron.