Re: MK3 and Palette+
No photos yet?
I've still got a couple weeks before my MK3 ships.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
the real problem is the price. we need an open source one.
Because the people that spent months and months developing this system aren't supposed to earn any money?
They should... but it's still expensive.... it's the same price as a printer... it's just how it works.... at that price adoption would be slow.... if they open sourced it and got others to do development and free support forums they could just drop the price of the pre-built unit and make money on volume. people can either A. Build one, B. Buy an assembled version supported for say, $500 instead.....
Re: MK3 and Palette+
the real problem is the price. we need an open source one.
Because the people that spent months and months developing this system aren't supposed to earn any money?
They should... but it's still expensive.... it's the same price as a printer... it's just how it works.... at that price adoption would be slow.... if they open sourced it and got others to do development and free support forums they could just drop the price of the pre-built unit and make money on volume. people can either A. Build one, B. Buy an assembled version supported for say, $500 instead.....
I still think its totally worth it if you have more than one printer or if you're planning on having.
Being able to have Multi-Color and some Multi-Material printing on every printer you own is quite amazing.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
Is there any video palette vs prusa mmu? Also, al videos talking about waste towers and not about quality of the prints! Maybe some mmu vs single extruder ❓
Re: MK3 and Palette+
To be perfectly honest, I have never seen any solid evidence that people are using the MMU with multiple material types, requiring multiple temperatures. It's supposed to work but I've never heard, read, or seen anyone actually doing it. Everything on Youtube related to the MMU has been about multiple colors, which is far less interesting.
I use my mmu with some pla at 210 and some at 195. It works, the printer wait (after the filament retraction) the new temp. On the other hand, if it's too low for the first filament to be extruded, it should jam.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
To be perfectly honest, I have never seen any solid evidence that people are using the MMU with multiple material types, requiring multiple temperatures. It's supposed to work but I've never heard, read, or seen anyone actually doing it. Everything on Youtube related to the MMU has been about multiple colors, which is far less interesting.
I use my mmu with some pla at 210 and some at 195. It works, the printer wait (after the filament retraction) the new temp. On the other hand, if it's too low for the first filament to be extruded, it should jam.
Those two temperatures are somewhat close. What would be interesting is whether it can handle PLA and Nylon or PLA and NinjaFlex, where the temperature spread is much larger. "It should jam" is not something that should happen. If the second material requires a higher temperature, heat up the extruder. If it requires lower, wait (possibly with fans on).
Re: MK3 and Palette+
"It should jam" is not something that should happen. If the second material requires a higher temperature, heat up the extruder. If it requires lower, wait (possibly with fans on).
Problem is, some material is present in the nozzle. How to clean it if the temp is too different? too hot => it burn, too low => it jam
Re: MK3 and Palette+
"It should jam" is not something that should happen. If the second material requires a higher temperature, heat up the extruder. If it requires lower, wait (possibly with fans on).
Problem is, some material is present in the nozzle. How to clean it if the temp is too different? too hot => it burn, too low => it jam
And that is exactly why the MMU is more "multi-color", not really "multi-material". Marketing it as multimaterial is a bit of a lie in my opinion. Until they figure out how to purge the nozzle from the old material without jamming it, it will never be a true multimaterial.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am starting to lean towards thinking that the MMU will never truly be multi-material. The first thing that I think about when thinking "multi-material" is PLA/ABS with NinjaFlex in the same print. However, those have very different thermal requirements. One would need some mechanical way of cleaning the nozzle with something other than filament.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am starting to lean towards thinking that the MMU will never truly be multi-material. The first thing that I think about when thinking "multi-material" is PLA/ABS with NinjaFlex in the same print. However, those have very different thermal requirements. One would need some mechanical way of cleaning the nozzle with something other than filament.
Combining PLA with Ninjaflex in one print would be awesome. That said, why couldn't you attempt to combine Ninjaflex and ABS? Aren't they in the same thermal range? (~230C) Or are those two materials just not capable of fusing properly?
Either way if that is your definition of 'multi-material' (i.e. materials with drastically different temp requirements), then it seems like the only thing that would currently satisfy that requirement is having multiple extruders. As you say, to accomplish that with one extruder (without jamming) would require a way to clear the nozzle of residual filament without pushing another filament through, which would require a radically different extruder design than anything I've ever seen on the market.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
I agree that the whole thing seems Rube Goldbergerish. On the other hand, it's available today, and I'm not seeing as many problems as people are reporting with the MK2 MMU. Even if the MMU is the better solution in the long run (and I think it may be), the Palette+ looks more mature right now.
I'd have to agree with this. Additionally, the reviews of the support behind the Palette+ are glowing. Whereas the PRUSA MMU seems to be treated as... experimental?
I'm trying to decide between the two solutions (even though I have the MMU on pre-order already). Strictly from a customer review and support perspective, the Palette+ seems to be the clear winner.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
I agree that the whole thing seems Rube Goldbergerish. On the other hand, it's available today, and I'm not seeing as many problems as people are reporting with the MK2 MMU. Even if the MMU is the better solution in the long run (and I think it may be), the Palette+ looks more mature right now.
I'd have to agree with this. Additionally, the reviews of the support behind the Palette+ are glowing. Whereas the PRUSA MMU seems to be treated as... experimental?
I'm trying to decide between the two solutions (even though I have the MMU on pre-order already). Strictly from a customer review and support perspective, the Palette+ seems to be the clear winner.
The Palette + also has a new feature on their software to use infill as Purge which is pretty cool!
Re: MK3 and Palette+
I've got my Palette+ working (mostly) with my MK3, and had several successful prints so far. Here's what I've found:
I'm still planning to install the MMU whenever it ships. I see the MMU and the Palette as having distinct advantages and disadvantages. The issue of the amount of purge in the Palette is a good example: it's always going to need more purge than the MMU because there's always some error in having the splice hit the extruder tip at exactly the right moment. So they build in a buffer in the form of extra purge.
One really nice thing abut the Palette is you can move it from printer to printer. So when my MMU arrives, assuming I can get the MMU to work acceptably well, I can move the Palette to another one of my printers.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
"It should jam" is not something that should happen. If the second material requires a higher temperature, heat up the extruder. If it requires lower, wait (possibly with fans on).
Problem is, some material is present in the nozzle. How to clean it if the temp is too different? too hot => it burn, too low => it jam
And that is exactly why the MMU is more "multi-color", not really "multi-material". Marketing it as multimaterial is a bit of a lie in my opinion. Until they figure out how to purge the nozzle from the old material without jamming it, it will never be a true multimaterial.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am starting to lean towards thinking that the MMU will never truly be multi-material. The first thing that I think about when thinking "multi-material" is PLA/ABS with NinjaFlex in the same print. However, those have very different thermal requirements. One would need some mechanical way of cleaning the nozzle with something other than filament.
This is just me spewing shower thoughts, but if you can pick filaments that play nicely in the same temperature range, it shouldn't be too bad. For instance, Makergeeks' Raptor PLA just plain refuses to extrude below 230C, and its recommended temperature is all the way up at 245C, within the range for Ninjaflex and a lot of the ABS/PETG I typically use. If you have materials that line up that well, and know how far filament has to travel to properly purge the previous material, you should be able to cleanly switch with a ~5C shift in printing temperature if needed. The problem that comes after that would be changing printing behaviors, like retraction distance, printing speed, and Z-hop. I'd bet Simplify3D could handle that nicely using multiple processes, but I don't think there's anything like that in Cura/Slic3r (shame, since neither of those cost as much as a full extruder and then some).
Re: MK3 and Palette+
[*]Color transitions use a lot of plastic: by default, about 4x what the MMU uses for each purge (but if you get it really well calibrated you might be able to get this down to 2x what the MMU uses). It's been common in my testing to have models where the purge tower is 10x the material as the print itself, but I've been adjusting some of my designs to be more efficient and have managed to bring this down a lot in some cases.
Thanks for posting some experience. This is disappointing to hear though. I could have sworn I'd seen other posts or videos talking about the Palette+ somehow making smaller purge towers. I'm already a bit bothered by the waste ratio of the MMU. 2x to 4x that amount is really bad.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
Thanks for posting some experience. This is disappointing to hear though. I could have sworn I'd seen other posts or videos talking about the Palette+ somehow making smaller purge towers. I'm already a bit bothered by the waste ratio of the MMU. 2x to 4x that amount is really bad.
If you don't like the waste with the MMU, then the Palette is probably not for you.
Personally, it bugs me a bit but not too much. With quality filament available for $15-$20/kg (and sometimes $10), we're not talking a lot of money. Of course, back in the day when you couldn't get filament for much less than $60/kg, that was a different matter.
Some helpful strategies to minimize purge:
As an example, here's an iPhone case I made using three colors of semiflex TPU. The colored design is only on the back of the case, two layers thick, and the amount of purge was almost nothing--maybe 5% of the total material used. It looks pretty sharp if I do say so myself.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
Cool case, and helpful pointers on minimizing waste. TBH, it's not the cost of the filament that makes me cringe at larger waste towers... it's the extra print time and the excess of plastic you're throwing in the waste bin. Like you said, filament is cheap. But printer time is a premium for me.
Guess I'll hold onto my order for the MMU, while keeping an eye on the Palette+ development.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
I'm real tempted by the Palette. I have the MMU mk2s right now but have been pretty disappointed with it. It doesn't jam up or anything like some people get stuck with but going to a bowden setup drastically reduced the print quality (primarily in stringing and oozing). I've had to reduce my print temps a bunch and spend a lot of time tuning retractions and even then with many filaments I can't eliminate stringing. Prusa support says that is a compromise they had to make for it to work. The multiplexer and long feed lines add a lot of feed resistance between the extruder motor and the hotend. Softer materials you can't even print reliably due to compression in the feed lines. I'm pretty much forced to only print with specific brands now where as before I could print just about anything with good results before MMU.
The Palette seems like it wouldn't have that issue since the hotend is basically unchanged and the extruder motor is right there. The printer wouldn't really function any differently so print quality would be preserved.
When you get the MMU for the mk3, I'm real interested to see if it does better than the MMU for the mk2s and how it compares with the palette.
Re: MK3 and Palette+
I also bought a palette + but prusa for 2 / s it does not fit. plastic tubes are too wide and the filament path of the printer is poorly designed. You must create new connections yourself. It is very time consuming to print this system. for me, it was very disappointing because the ad was beautiful.