Snapmaker U1 - some very interesting features

[Redbrickman]

I'm not for one minute comtemplating a Kickstarter pledge, however the company has a good track record and their design of the U1 is potentially a gamechanger as far as multicolour printing goes. What I like is the 4 toolheads have been engineered in such a way that there is virtually no wasted filament when chaning colours. No purging takes places as the incoming toolhead is preheated and the only small amount of waste is in the small prime tower where the head prints a little to build pressure.

I have contemplated a multicolour machine for a while but the wastage of current models too much for my liking. Some of the current AMS enabled machines can produce 3-4 times the weight of the print in waste!

Now a rant...

One other thing that if it happens will make a lot of people more inclined to buy it. Unlike bambu and some others Snapmaker have said they will honour the GPL licencing and release the source files for Klipper etc. People are becoming wise to the fact that Bambu and others are restricting what can be done with their machines. As an example why do Bambu consider it necessary to only allow users to use their slicer in the future, a slicer incidentally that is a rip off of other slicers. I do believe they have made decisions that they will regret in their efforts to maximise profits by keeping everything proprietory.

Will be interesting to see where this printer goes in the near future...

An overview...

 

[Artur5]

I’ve never been much interested on multimaterial/multicolor machines. thinking that it's an awful waste of time and filament. In many cases (not always, of course ) multicolor prints can use clever designs where the final model is made assembling different parts printed separately. No waste at all.

Yes, it seems that lately some manufacturers are finding new ways to minimize the extra time and material wasted by those units and maybe in a couple of years we'll have acceptable solutions. I don’t about Snapmaker, but I’ve been following Bondtech’s blog about their INDX. If what they promise comes true, it would be ground breaking innovation. For sure that this INDX won’t be released any time soon or maybe never. Bondtech only knows what technical challenges are involved. If they get it working well at last, it’s a game changer in multimaterial printing. Besides,as INDX modules are fitted as a sort of kit to existent good quality printers ( Voron, maybe others...), no need to buy a whole new printer, so it wouldn't be very expensive ( in theory...)
Nevertheless, even if this thing comes to the market for real, there's an additional deal breaker for me. You need a lot of room to fit all these spools and the added hardware on top and inside the printers ( 4, 6 or even more units ). I haven't a workshop, garage or a dedicated spare room to install the whole thing. In all likelihood I'll pass, because my two printers fill all the available space left in my small apartment.