Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
I've had an MK3S and MMU2S since they came out and while it took me months to get the MMU2S dialed in, but since then it has been mostly reliable. The most common issue I still have is the "MMU failed to load" problem (but that seems to be more filament based, depending on how it pulls back out of the nozzle) and then the occasional idler/carriage mis-alignment. I think the MMU series still has a future, and the reasons are that the MMU2 is still less than an additional tool head on the XL and while the Palette exists, it is still limited and is pricey.
My primary use for the MMU is single color mode as I like to drop a print onto the printer remotely and command the right color. As printers now seem to all include wifi support, it justifies this use case even more in the future (and I've pre-ordered a 5 head XL).
I've seen some great community mods like the 12x mod and Ryper mod, but both of them still utilize the idler drum which is a source for a lot of problems for many, but no cohesive effort long-term. Speaking of long term...
Based on the updates (or lack thereof) from Prusa, I assume their team is bogged down with other projects and they just don't have the resources to develop the MMU concept further. To me, the community has the capacity to iterate and improve the MMU2's design into something that Prusa could learn at least something from, and with the necessary paperwork for all parties I don't see any reason not to try for an MMU3.
I'm down for being part of the effort and trying to wrangle and organize volunteers, but doing this would need at least some confirmation and communication from Prusa so people knew they weren't wasting their time. If Prusa has no interest in community involvement for the MMU3 then there's no point in a cohesive effort.
Thoughts?
(Please don't respond with "MMU sucks don't bother" responses. I've read them, and I even made them - we all want to see those posts disappear.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
Have there been any official announcements, or even chatter, about a possible MMU3?
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
I haven't seen a single thing and the "we don't talk about future product" talk would be expected even if asked directly.
Personally I could see it being on a back burner as not all that many people who get a MK3 get an MMU. Even farther on a back burner right now with everything going on in that part of the world. I can see a hypothetical MMU3 being a lower priority than the XL, print farm and possibly even a future "MK4" printer.
My main concern is that there is a development window within Prusa on the main board for the XL (especially if it's being used for other printers) and once that board is set, there are some things that can't be implemented without a board change which would be extremely costly.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
My take is that there won't be anything significant about the MMU until after the MK4 comes out with a 32-bit board it would then be open to making the MMU life a lot easier (e.g. better error messages, better visibility to info, etc..). Maybe they add more tools in the meantime to compete with the Palette 3 Pro as that would be a relatively simple upgrade. Improving the slicing to better manage multi-material temp changes would be something else that could be done now.
With the XL, however, I don't know how much of a life the MMU will have though. I can see Prusa taking the view that it would be cutting into the XL's market and they might not want to do that. I hope that is not the case though as there is room for both.
Now what would really be cool in my opinion is being able to use the MMU with the XL. Say tools 1-3 as stand alone task specific heads and then attach MMUs on 4 and 5 one for PETG and the other for PLA. Or 5 tools each with a MMU for 25 possible filaments!
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
MMU AND the XL head changer, you sadist…
when we go 32 bit, will it be able to control more motors? That is what I’d like to see, each filament with its own motor. You could then do a long hot end with rotor-stator mixer to mix colors… that would be cool…
RE:
With the XL, however, I don't know how much of a life the MMU will have though. I can see Prusa taking the view that it would be cutting into the XL's market and they might not want to do that. I hope that is not the case though as there is room for both.
I don't see the MMU cutting into the XL market. I see the MMU2S and the XL to be serving completely different markets:
- Anyone interested in casual multi-color printing (not multi-material) can go with the MMU. In practice one gets weak parts when mixing materials (like PLA and dissolvable PVA) because one needs a ridiculous amount of purge volume to clear the nozzle fully on each tool change. So it works best for the same material in multiple colors. The MMU tool changes contribute significant additional duration to print time. For non-production one-off hobbyist print jobs, it's fine. And it's affordable.
- The XL, by contrast, is a true multi-material printer. It has 5 extruders, with a dedicated filament in each. No purging, no big wipe tower. Minimal delay between tool changes. The whole point of the XL is production efficiency, good for making repeated multi-material prints fairly quickly. And it's nearly triple the price of the MK3S+MMU2S.
Somehow our family evolved so that my wife manages our finances. She didn't object when I bought the MK3S and MMU2S for me and my son to build and work with. She would object, however, if I proposed getting an XL, I can imagine her saying "What for? So you can make penny traps and mechanical toys quicker? Are you planning on starting a business with it?" For me, it's a nice-to-have, maybe something I'll buy when I retire. But as for now, I am not the target market for the XL.
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We've seen the question already raised for the XL whether future versions of prusaslic3r would be able to accept different size nozzles on the same part (for infill, fox example). I think it's a great idea, but the computational horsepower to accomplish it may be a struggle. If you're going to have a fat nozzle for infill, what about infill layers? Can you maintain quality doing the outer perimeters with a 0.1 layer height and a 0.4 nozzle and then the infill at 0.3 layer height with a 1.0 nozzle, lets say? So taking that to consideration about mixing colors an materials, I don't think that's the endgame or really could be - getting good quality that's repeatable might be tough. I could see the community coming up with a solution, but not Prusa themselves in that regard - but the custom software side to generate the g-code wouldn't be for the average user.
Looking at the ERCF and MMU, I think the current MK3/MMU setup is exactly as Anachronist said - it's a fun multi-color solution but adds *significant* time to the prints. The cost of the waste purge block sucks, but it's honestly the machine time that is more of a problem.
Some folks have modded the MMU to where it has multiple teflon tubes going to the hot end, which can significantly reduce the time to do changes, and I wonder if that solution might be FASTER than the tool-change solution offered by the XL - it depends on how fast it can change heads. That's a multi-color comparison question, not true multi-material.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
With the XL, however, I don't know how much of a life the MMU will have though. I can see Prusa taking the view that it would be cutting into the XL's market and they might not want to do that. I hope that is not the case though as there is room for both.
I don't see the MMU cutting into the XL market. I see the MMU2S and the XL to be serving completely different markets:
From a functional perspective I agree (as I said in what you quoted). I have seen, however, many similar cases where the business people say something stupid like "if there is no MMU, then they'd have to buy the XL which is more money for us". That line of thinking of course ignores your example (and many others) which translates into neither being bought, but it is unfortunately not an uncommon thought process. As I said, I hope Prusa doesn't go that route and the MMU continues at least for the i3 line.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
So here's a thought provoking question - on the Prusa print farm demo they did with rack mounted printers that just slide in and out of a wall of printers... how does the controlling software select the correct printer? Do they say load 3 printers, each with a spool of a given color... so a print farm of black, red, white, gray and silver would be 15 printers and 15 spools of filament? If you want to print a demo object in.... gray, but all 3 printers printing gray are busy, are you SOL, despite 5 other printers sitting there doing nothing?
OR
Does the print farm have some form of filament management system that directs a filament from a giant rack of spools to the correct printer, so a job is assigned to an available printer which is then given the appropriate color?
...
It's a stupid thought, but I think there's an opportunity for the go one of two ways in the future. Either as a consumer "hobbyist" product like the MMU2, or as a "print farm filament management system" where it could pair with an XL with 5 print heads and direct a given filament to each print head.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
I've been looking for any word on an MK4, but someone (outside of Prusa) told me there won't be an MK4 because the i3 form factor is considered outdated. I would assume that if there's no MK4, there won't be an MMU3, especially since the XL has so many extruders.
This upsets me greatly as Josef promised that my printer would be upgradeable.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
"Outside of Prusa"
And you believed them outright? Not trying to be overly snarky, but when I hear something like that I question why you'd trust that person when Prusa themselves won't say anything to anyone about future products - heck, they won't say anything on the XL which has been announced!
But for the critical thinking exercise of the day, just look at the new Anker printer or the literal army of Ender machines - the MK3 form factor is a pretty robust one and there's a reason so many printers share design elements. Is the main electronics board on the MK3 "outdated"? Sure. But that's like my PC is outdated because its like 6 years old. Still runs great for my use case after some upgrades though. Outdated =/= non-functional.
The Anker and Bambu promise AI software for failure detection, and I'd love to see that on a Prusa - but there isn't enough data out there and printers in people's hands to validate the failure detection software yet. Would I love those features? Absolutely. But for me, Octoprint on a Raspberry Pi is fine at this point and it's open source which fits my use case. Will Prusa eventually add those same features? Who knows!
On your comment about upgradability, the MK3, MK3S, MK3S+ are certainly upgradable - but I'm not sure what you're expecting for upgrades and who would provide them. You can upgrade the frame, the hot end, electronics.... basically anything - but being "upgradable" doesn't implicitly state Prusa will always be the one to provide the upgrades. Compare to that the Bambu printer on kickstarter which uses a proprietary hot end and componentry and you can't do jack (to our knowledge, so far), or Bambu which isn't open source at this time.
If you're having a case of buyers remorse, I guess I'd just ask what you were expecting or wanting to do that your MK3 can't do?
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
Hello,
No, I didn't take their word for it. Given the lack of word from Prusa on the future of the printer that got them started, I thought it was plausible, and I still do. Until someone like Josef himself says otherwise, the future of the i3 line is unknown and uncertain.x
As for the upgrade, I know the MK3 upgrades to the MK3S and MK3S+, but that's not the upgrade that I'm talking about. Josef said in some video I have no link to that the MK3 would be upgradable to future version, much like you could upgrade some versions of the MK2 to the MK3, which I took to mean that I would be able to upgrade my MK3 to an MK4.
And I never said I had buyers remorse. I bought my MK3 several years ago, and upgraded it to the MK3S, then to the MK3S+, and now the MMU2S. I'm anxiously waiting the MK4 because it will be new and shiny and do new things, not because I'm unhappy with my MK3S+. I get great prints from my MK3S+ and have no reason to be unhappy.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
I think Prusa's vision of the future is multiple tools/extruders instead of Rube Goldberg type filament changers, as implemented in the XL, coming Real Soon Now.
The MMU2S does work, with attention to detail and TLC, but since I got the Ultimaker with the dual extruder I only use it when I have a three (or more) color print, which was once, I think, in the past year.
For soluble supports or simple two-color I'll use the Ultimaker. The dual extruder is quicker and more reliable and does not waste filament in the wipe tower. (Although, there actually is an option to have a wipe tower for two-color or single-color with support prints, for some reason.)
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
I think Prusa's vision of the future is multiple tools/extruders
If they want to put two extruders on the MK4, that's fine by me! Especially if we can swap tools and get a laser or a spindle on there to do some engraving or some carving. 🙂
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
IDEX would be a big upgrade, but would make printing duplicate and mirror objects twice as fast.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
My ideal MMU3 would be:
idex for a 2nd material - for either support or flex/hard mix within print
Nozzle (rather than whole extruder) swapping to reduce purge and therefore improve speed. - something like Swapper3d
'Replacing idler drum with separate motors (like the original MMU) for improved reliability.
Filament cutter within extruder to remove tip and stringing issues
Motorised wind back of filament onto spools to remove buffer issues
The ability to add multiple MMUs to increase the number of colours auto selectable and within prints.
improved sensors and software.
It being fast and reliable enough for Prusa to include multi colour and material within the next versions of mk3 and mini etc.
RE: Can we help Prusa with the "MMU3" so it is better than the MMU2?
MMU3 just came out. Video on youtube along with MK4.