Multicolor print while drying

Creality Ecosystem Filament & Resin
, ,
1

Creality is so close to having a great Multicolor accessory lineup, but it all comes up just short. I would love a multicolor print while drying solution that integrated with various printers. Like really integrated, not just connected to.

Current Options

CFS - Integrates with certain printers, but no active drying, just desiccant packs. And doesn’t integrate with all printers

Space Pi - Active drying, not multicolor, not integrated.

SpacePi X4 - getting close!! Multicolor, Drying while printing, but really designed to feed several different printers from one location. Not a wide use case.

Other companies

Anycubic has the ACE Pro2 which does do multicolor drying while printing, integrates with many of their printers including the flagship line (S1) and budget line (Kobra 3) as well as large printbed (Kobra 3 Max).

Prusa has . . . . nothing. Just a giant, multi-toolhead printer with spools hanging out in the open.

The interface on the ACE is a USB/Serial connection. Looks like a serial port on the printer controller side, but it’s USB protocol over the wires. Great idea!! Very flexible, Maybe we can integrate that with a Creality printer?

Rant versus Think Tank

Note: I do not have an answer here. I am tossing an idea out there for people to muse over. I am simply stating that in the 3D printing world, there is a use case for this. We have hit speed, we have hit printbed size, we have enclosed and non-enclosed options, We have multi-color using one toolhead, we have multi-color using multiple toolheads. I think the next innovative jump will be the company that produces an add-on to make these multi-color printers easier to use and more reliable (dry filament).

2

Since I’ve got my K2 Pro Combo I am using CFS and it’s totally good enough for me, I don’t need active drying. I think it may be too expensive to add an active drying for CFS, because it is already expensive thing. Maybe that’s why we still don’t get it. If you print mainly PLA you may don’t need an active drying (but that’s only my opinion). On the other hand, I live in the center of Europe, where the overall humidity is acceptable. I don’t see living in the country, where you should dry every single spool of filament :smiley:

Best regards!

1 Like
3

Well, around here, (Virginia, just outside of Washington DC) it’s fine for most of the year, but you get into late spring and summer and our humidity id off the charts. But even in low humidity, I see MUCH better prints when they are coming out of the active dryer, than the ones sitting on the spool. I get a lot of broken filament when I go to print after a day or two of the spool sitting there.

1 Like