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.
Seems like a good way to sell very expensive hot ends.
Not wrong, lol. Cheaper than a bunch of toolheads though, I assume.
Prusa’s 5 toolhead kit costs more than I paid for my X1C with AMS and this doesn’t even include the cost of the printer.
That’s just a Prusa pricing problem though. Check out snapmaker U1. It’s a 4 toolhead system coming in under the x1c price point.
Looks pretty decent and I hope things work out for them with their Kickstarter.