So, I have always wanted to do multi filament printing. The thought of doing multicolor or washable supports has been such a cool idea and I tried to make that a reality all the way back when I bought my Geeetech A10M… And oh boy did I hate it. (Don’t do single extruder multi filament kids, it ain’t worth the headache.)

So, with only my trusty prusa mk2 at my side I’m thinking of finally getting an IDEX machine and trying again right this time. Then I looked at the price of the Prusa XL and died a little.

So, this is where I am gonna ask for some help.
I saw that Flashgorge is selling their Creator Pro 2 for only $400 and with a cheap upgrade for a magnetic plate seems like it would be an awesome deal even if it’s a bit small of a build size.

Or I could go 3rd party and get the JGMaker Artist D Pro IDEX 3D Printer (which I have never heard of) for the same price but with a heck of a lot more build space.

Or I could swallow my pride and a shit ton of credit card payments and do just the 2 head semi-built prusa XL for 3x the cost.

So essentially has anyone tried the Flashforge Creator Pro 2 and thinks it would be worth it for basically half off?
Have 3rd party Chinese brands gotten more trustworthy and actually able to print decent at these insanely low prices?
Or is it still one of those you pay for what you get and if you want good multi filament printing you have to pay for it?

  • DreadPotatoEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    If you don’t mind the closed platform, you can also get the Bambu labs A1 mini + AMS Lite for around that price. From what I’ve heard, it works really well, albeit a bit wasteful when switching filaments due to the purging it does.

    • Krauerking@lemy.lolOPEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Yeah. I saw those and my SO has suggested it might be a good idea but having done single hotend the purge towers are a massive pain and pretty wasteful and if your filaments are especially different there can be clogs in them.

      I mean my previous multi filament printer was single hotend and used a ball bearing apparently to keep the filaments separate while heated and just clogged all the time.

      But yeah I have heard good things about Bambu

      • DreadPotatoEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        Yeah for multi-material printing multiple extruders are preferred, but for multi-color printing with the same material type it’s just fine with a single extruder. The purging waste is crazy though, completely agree.

        My buddy described his X1P with AMS as “the iPhone experience” of 3D printing. You can’t control much, but it’s a seamless plug’n’play solution without any fuss.

        • SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          And there’s no easy way to avoid it since you have to replace the melt zone plastic with the new color including traces that will blend together (e.g. white replacing black will have some gray for a bit)

          • DreadPotatoEnglish
            2·
            10 months ago

            You could use the mixed colour transition for infill, that way it could be used instead of just wasted.