Rarely has a hobby been as fickle as 3D printing. Choosing the right machine at the right price is difficult enough, but then even the printing itself can be a treacherous task. Things get stuck or detach as the temperature changes. It also involves loading and unloading the filament and dealing with clogged nozzles. 3D printing can be a bit of a challenge that will really test your patience, and that’s before you delve into multicolored prints.
Once you get comfortable with your printing technique, you’ll want to print some cool things to make it worthwhile. Probably something that has more than one color, but that adds a lot of complexity and time. Changing a color center print usually requires the printer to complete a cleaning block to achieve a smooth color transition. These take forever and waste tons of 3D filament, especially when there’s a big difference between the colors.
When prints are already taking hours or even days to complete, adding erase blocks here and there to transition colors can easily double that time. That’s why this kickstarter (opens in new tab) The promise of an interchangeable nozzle attachment for your 3D printer seems like a lifesaver.
The Swapper3D is an attachable mod that adds automatic nozzle swapping to your existing FDM 3D printer. It is developed by BigBrain3D (opens in new tab) which previously ran successful Kickstarter campaigns around 3D color printing software.
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The unit can hold up to 25 nozzles, which can be quickly swapped out during printing. They sit on a rotating disk and since each nozzle only contains one color of filament, there is no need to print out useless and wasteful cleaning pads. You can also pick up different materials or sizes for more variation.
The project is currently supported. So, if you want to take part in the early bird offers, you can pre-order a Swapper3D for 399 CAD (about 310 USD). This actually costs more than my 3D printer, so I’m unlikely to be the target market for this device. However, for anyone doing a decent amount of color change printing, this can save a lot of time, money and waste.
If you are looking for cool print projects, the CAD files for a Steam deck (opens in new tab) shell are present. Or maybe you can donate your printing skills to a good cause and receive adaptable, accessible controllers for those in need (opens in new tab).
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