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.
I definitely wouldn’t say they’ve lost all trust in everyone. Bambu has brought all kinds of innovation to the space as well as spearheaded the whole making it an appliance that just works which brought 3d printing more mainstream than ever. We have a lot to thank Bambu engineers for I’d say.
Nonetheless they deserve to be constantly ridiculed for their closed ecosystem contrary to reprap ethos
A level headed take on Bambu identifying positives and negatives? I must be reading the wrong community.
A1 mini was my first printer and it just worked. It made my foray into 3d printing smooth and enjoyable. I keep it offline now and I’ve registered complaints with Bambu about them walling off their garden. I will unlikely be buying another Bambu machine, but I like the one I’ve got.
Yep. Bambu has done a lot for the perception of 3D printing in the main stream. They offer good hardware with ease of use that didn’t exist until they appeared. And at a decent price for casual hobbyists/users whether the pure haters like it or not.
***Full disclosure: I own a Mini with AMS Lite and a Prusa Mk3s. My take on Bambu is, “Good hardware with not always very good software and sketchy business practices.” YMMV