Most of the multi color printers out there are AMS/MMU or similar, and there are many DIY options, like Armored Turtle or ECF.
They are an evolutionary dead end. Slow, wasteful, expensive to run.
The Prusa XL, or the Snapmaker U1 are the future direction.
Also a good CoreXY machine like vorons/sovols/ratrigs/VZ, etc can be upgraded with the Bondtech INDX tool changer.
We are talking 5x lower print times, 5x lower material costs.
There is going to be a glut of used Bambus and other multi material unit printers, when print farms unload them, since the tool changers will massively boost their bottom line.
Comments?
Same here. Printing something like say, a cow, with frequent swaps would be wasteful, but I’ll do parts with 1-2 color swaps. It’s mostly nice as you said though to have multiples “locked and loaded” to do a 1 filament print.
If you have a print with supports, having a support filament that adds little extra time, compared to an MMU, is much more than nice. Being able to use rigid and flexible prints reliably in the same print is more than nice. From what I have read, flexibles in MMUs are prone to failure.