Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?  

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

If they do collaborate, you will not hear anything unless it is released at a show or on their blog.  Prusa rarely posts anything on the forum in response to questions about R&D on the forums.  

I would guess "no" to the initial core XY because $1200-1500 would be less than the tool changer.   

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

The tool changer is cool how it works, but i see several problems with it.

You have to head and hold four or more extruders to the right temperature and you have to carry that the nozzles don´t ozz at any time. The cost´s are also a big problem and you have to care and maintance four extruders. 😨 

I don´t see this coming in the future because the mmu2s has also a lot of potential.

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

Posted by: @roland-s12

The tool changer is cool how it works, but i see several problems with it.

You have to head and hold four or more extruders to the right temperature and you have to carry that the nozzles don´t ozz at any time. The cost´s are also a big problem and you have to care and maintance four extruders. 😨 

I don´t see this coming in the future because the mmu2s has also a lot of potential.

The MMU2 has zero potential to compete with a tool changer.  They have different purposes.  

I tool changer allows you to have more than just an extruder.  

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

Although I think it is unlikely now, I can see a tool changer  coming in the future.  

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

Posted by: @charles-h13

If they do collaborate, you will not hear anything unless it is released at a show or on their blog.  Prusa rarely posts anything on the forum in response to questions about R&D on the forums.  

I would guess "no" to the initial core XY because $1200-1500 would be less than the tool changer.   

I'm actually surprised that Prusa even mentioned that a larger printer is on the horizon, let alone the configuration (coreXY vs i3 vs delta, etc). As you said, Prusa rarely posts about what is in R&D, understandably so they can sell a few printers before the clones start showing up using Prusa's own open source design assets.

Maybe they wanted to keep potential customers from settling on the current generation of large format printers until the Prusa version is available.

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

Definitely not in this price range ($1200-1500)

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

@sembazuru

What I meant by that is that Prusa usually releases information just before release and when a printer is well into the development process.

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

if you look at the kit price for a railcore at around 1700 USD and that one is not mass produced and has the toolchanger option, I would expect a machine from prusa in the same ballpark featurewise to compete.

True the railcore kits are not at this pricepoint in europe with import taxes, duty, and over 200€ in shipping costs - but if you mass produce a machine you can significantly reduce cost. 

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

@christoph-e5

I am not sure whether printer for ~1700€ (my estimated end-user price) could be considered as so mass produced that it lowers prices of components significantly. 379€ printer? Out of pocket. CoreXY/XL/MaX(Y) printer? That’s not something consumers buy on a whim when seeing the price. There will be demand, sure, but not as huge as for MINI. (I’d like to be proven wrong, of course. I am curious about it as well.)

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

For the announced intended price range (we'll see if they can hit it), I wouldn't expect much more than a basic printer with the Prusa features we already expect. (Though, I think I did hear something about Jo mentioning that they are in the process of trying to develop a smart print bed heater that can heat in zones so, for example, one doesn't have to heat the entire 400x400 print bed to print something that will fit in a much smaller space. Not sure if it is something as simple as quadrant heating or if they are trying for something more ambitious. Not even sure if they will succeed the development to get something like that to market.)

But, I would hope that the capability to expand to a tool changer would be built into the driver board. (Whether that is full capability in the board or, like the MMU2, a communication port for the driver board to control an expansion board that has the extra I/O channels.)

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

@crawlerin

True, there won't be as huge numbers as minis or mk3s sold, on the other hand I do think there is not just a small market for those who want a sturdy but precise workhorse with decent expandability. The toolchanger opens up a plethora of new possibilities and is a potential pocket opener for customers. 

@sembazuru

If I had to choose to pay premium for a segmented heated bed vs. toolchanger option I'd always go for the toolchanger option. A thermally stable bed with preferably a mains powered bed heater would be a lot more appealing to me. Heating only segments of the bed without warping it might pose a challenge of physics...

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

@christoph-e5

Interesting how different the opinions can be.

In regards to the price for me $1000 is already a soft limit. $1200 I might be ready to spend because of PR and bigger printer. $1500 is already a hard limit. Everything beyond $1500 is hard to justify for a hobby printer.

So far I'm not convinced spending more money just because of the tool changer. I would rather buy a good dual head printer for the same amount of money. Right now I'm printing stuff with >800 tool changes per part. Would be interesting to know for how many tool changes the whole solution is rated. You're rubbing metal on metal and require very high precision. You might need to replace stuff more often.

Regarding main power for heated bed is kind of no-go for me. I've seen so many broken cables on the 3D printers and also damages to the surface of the heated bed. The risk that something goes wrong does not justify the faster/more efficient heating.

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

On a CoreXY there is not a lot of strain on heater cables - the bed is just moving up and down at rather low speeds. Are you afraid of electrocution or of the printer going up in flames? A robust aluminium bed with a mains powered silicone heater under it vs. a more flimsy DC powered PCB bed and high currents 🤔

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

@christoph-e5

It's a topic of it's own. Don't want to drift too far away here. Just wanted to give another point of view from the hobby user perspective. People will not buy everything just because there is Prusa in the name or any most recent technology implemented. To miss the market is very easy, especially if you're asking a higher price.

I'm sure J. Prusa is well aware of that and so far he was able to find a good balance of features and the price.

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

Posted by: @christoph-e5

@sembazuru

If I had to choose to pay premium for a segmented heated bed vs. toolchanger option I'd always go for the toolchanger option. A thermally stable bed with preferably a mains powered bed heater would be a lot more appealing to me. Heating only segments of the bed without warping it might pose a challenge of physics...

I agree with your concerns about uncontrollable warping that a zone-heated bed might experience. Depends on how they do it. That is part of why I didn't sound very confident that their R&D would be able to bring it to market. I could see each zone being a physically different piece, each individually supported, and then using the magnetically attached print surface to cover the gaps/expansion joints between the zones. But that would likely be technically difficult to make sure they are all mounted at the same height with less than 0.1mm (or less) tolerance.

Yeah, physics can be a b*tch sometimes.

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

I think the segmented bed may be cheaper and more efficient.  

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

Good points raised by everyone here: I agree that an optional tool changer upgrade would push the total printer cost well beyond $1500 (and maybe make it not viable as a product), and I also agree that it would open up new possibilities for anyone that chose the upgrade.

For now I guess it's more realistic to think about smaller changes like the improved heat bed that Prusa hinted at. A heatbed with separate quadrants for faster heating would be pretty cool if it doesn't have issues with warping.

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

It costs me 1300E to buy a preassembled mk3s and later an mmu2s. Without taking into account the number of hours still purring to mmu2.  A well designed corexy frame with optional toolchanger at a starting cost of 1200-1300E is not considered expensive. I mean keep in mind that probably at some point people may want a multi-material solution for that also. That will be an additional cost, of at least, 300E if they keep the mmu path. Prusa could design the frame to accommodate a toolchanger even if the basic package comes with just one extruder/head, thus keeping the original cost "low". No one said that they should add 2 or more from the start. One can purchase one or more extruders/tools later. You can slowly build your printer when you have money in you pocket.

I wrote it in a couple of post already, but the possibility to print the bulk of a project with let say a .6 nozzle and then finish the top layer or details with 0.4 looks quite attractive to me. Or even with some slicer magic being able to print perimeters with the 0.4 and do the filling with the 0.6. Prusa already turned slic3r to one of the best option out there.

RE: Will Prusa consider a Toolchanger Upgrade for the CoreXY?

Segmented bed can be done in more than one way, for example my first thought was not 4 quadrants, but rather let's say 18x18 cm square in the middle for smaller prints, then remaining 16+16 cm around the edges that electronics turn on only when printing beyound that. 

As for toolchanger - IMO it may not have system like E3D toolchanger for automatic head changing - at least not initially. But definitely something that will allow you change extruders really quickly manually, instead of disassembling to fans, plastic parts, etc. This is one of the things people moan about to be improved, alongside bigger print area. It will make sense for big printer to print with large nozzle and high flow heater, then quickly swap whole assembly for normal 0.4 when printing smaller more detailed stuff, without disassembling everything to change extruder. It's not discovering America, expensive printers use such systems already (think Ultimaker's print cores). But bringing such stuff down to printers in affordable price category had been what Prusa Research was built upon, and how they advance the industry. 

Additionally if the mounting mechanism is universal enough, it opens up possibilities for modders to bring other types of tools, like paste, food, laser, whatnot. Next step will be automating it...

Or I am totally off and we will get something completely different. Mini came out of blue sky, they can surprise us with something unheard of too.