The amount of waste produced is staggering it is nearly double the filament I would normally use. I am going to have to figure out where to change the setting.
It’s less compared to similar previous systems. But it will always need to clean the nozzle path. There are some tricks like if you can need multiple prints that fit on the build plate and can be printed at once, that helps the most because it still only needs to swap the color once for all the copies. You can also do things like purge into the infill of one copy then to save a bit more. What the SparkX did improve is the filament path and a retraction before cutting the filament. For minimal waste you would need a tool changer, but printers like that will cost much more because they need a separate toolhead for each filament.
I have an Anycubic S1 Combo and there is a place to configure the waste between colors. My issue is that it extrudes the old and new filament in 1 shot then does 2 more of the new color which should be stopped or have a place to adjust it.
I’ve read (Setting the Record Straight: Understanding Filament Waste in Multi-Col – Co Print) that reducing the length of transition filament between color changes by about 50% can reduce the amount of waste. Haven’t tried yet as I can’t find the setting in the Creality slicer. I decided not to print a 4 color model (about 4” high) because the amount of waste was astounding - a multiple of the weight of the model, totaling almost half a kilo.
My waste is about 1/2 if there are a lot of changes.