4 Colour 3D printer

[The Hat]

Now you can have 4 colour printing all in one 350x350x350 size package.

Expensive yes, but it’s the Bees knees with all its new technology built-in..
click to enlarge..

 

[Nifty]

I'm tempted!!!

 

[Redbrickman]

And the first printer "Mod" will be removing the RFID chips from used spools and putting them on the same colour but cheaper filament spools

 

[Redbrickman]

Looking at a couple of reviews that's a very attractive printer and the price is competitive with the Bambu. Not having to use the cloud is also a bonus for those that value their privacy.

Hopefully it will eventaully support Klipper software as there are so many good add ons with Klipper including the Orca slicer which is now well proven.

One thing they need to do is configure the purging of filament so that it retracts the filament and only purges and cuts a small amount thus saving wastage.

I assume that the long lasting patent that one company had on the chamber heater has now expired as this K2 Plus has full chamber heating capabilities - nice!

If I had to choose a Bambu or this new Creality I'd buy the K2 Plus.

 

[Artur5]

As far as 3D manufacturer marketing is concerned I'm HIGHLY skeptical about all the claims they make about those awesome features. I believe maybe 10% of all this hype and, on second thoughts, only 5%.. 600 mm/s printing speed with supreme quality my foot (and theirs ). It seems that Creality or Prusa ( and many politicians ) have read carefully the book 'how to lie shamelessly without blushing a bit.".

Multi material printing has been here for years and, so far, none of those systems convince me in the least. To begin with, the waste in time and filament is so huge that, it's almost better to design a model from individual parts that you print on different colours and then are glue/assembled together. Of course, in many cases, due to the complexity of the model this isn't practical or even possible, but I prefer then to hand paint the print afterwards. Tiresome and time consuming yes, but no so much as the Bambu AMS, Prusa MMU, Voron ERRCF or the new Creality system.

 

[The Hat]

I believe maybe 10% of all this hype and, on second thoughts, only 5%.. 600 m/s printing speed with supreme quality my foot (and theirs ). It seems that Creality or Prusa ( and many politicians ) have read carefully the book 'how to lie shamelessly without blushing a bit.".

I think I’ll stick with the good old Mono 3D system, because I have on occasions being known to have objects with many colours without all the messing around trying to decide which colour goes first..
but having a loan of this Creality printer for a week would be great fun.. O’ and the filaments too..

If I had to choose a Bambu or this new Creality I'd buy the K2 Plus.

I’d sooner stick with Creality because they make printers that last..

it's almost better to design a model from individual parts that you print on different colours and then are glue/assembled together

I have done that with some success..

 

[Redbrickman]

As far as 3D manufacturer marketing is concerned I'm HIGHLY skeptical about all the claims they make about those awesome features. I believe maybe 10% of all this hype and, on second thoughts, only 5%.. 600 m/s printing speed with supreme quality my foot (and theirs ). It seems that Creality or Prusa ( and many politicians ) have read carefully the book 'how to lie shamelessly without blushing a bit.".

I agree - Speed and quality do not go together. Maybe fine for prototype parts or parts that are purely functinal rather than have to look nice, i.e. internal brackets etc. For anything that needs to look good I never go about 100mm/s for the external walls on the Voron and sometimes 50 mm/s.

 

[Nifty]

I go back and forth between getting a big core xy machine or not. I just worry about:

1. Ability to fix things if they break. Seems much easier on an open-source bed-slinger
2. Sound: They seem like they are all loud, but maybe that's just at the super fast speeds, so turning speed down will reduce noise?
3. I'd like a big one, but I think that even comes with cons vs. a small one... or does that just apply to bedslingers?

Some day I'll probably break down and get one.

 

[The Hat]

Some day I'll probably break down and get one.

 

[Epatcola]

Not having to use the cloud is also a bonus for those that value their privacy.

You don't have to use the Bambu cloud. I don't let the slicer access the internet at all never mind be logged into a Bambu account. The printers used to have to be logged into a Bambu account to retrieve firmware updates, but, recently they supported firmware update from SD Card. I block all but DNS and NTP access for the printer in my router firewall to be sure. With SD Card updates I will never have to unblock it again.

Bambu are rumoured to be bringing out a new top of the range prosumer model Q1 2025. Rumors say larger build area, heated chamber, maybe even dual heads. Some possible packaging labels were leaked with it looking like a big X1. I expect it will be expensive.

One thing they need to do is configure the purging of filament so that it retracts the filament and only purges and cuts a small amount thus saving wastage.

There isn't a lot that can be done with purge amounts. If you want clean color transition you simply have to feed enough through the nozzle to flush out the old color. Some people and Bambu have tried reducing the purge amount by pulling filament out of the heat break some before cutting and hoping the new filament will be able to push the old bit with a melted end back down to the nozzle. I don't know if that has been reliable enough for Bambu to use that tweak.