Bambu’s nine-nozzle H3C foretells the future of 3D printing

Three years ago, I told you how residence 3D printers had evolved for speed, producing parts in minutes that used to obtain hours or days. Now, the next development is here: printers that can toggle between materials on the fly, mix distinct colors to create nearly the complete rainbow, mix gentle and difficult materials, and equal mix distinct sizes of nozzle and distinct diameters of filament so you can toggle between elevated speed and fine item in a sole print.

Today, Bambu Lab is announcing its most advanced 3D printer yet, the $2,499 H3C, which can do all of that mixing goodness — by loading nine distinct rolls of filament into nine distinct imprint heads.

Even if you’d never buy a printer this pricy, equal if you’ve sworn off Bambu printers for good, the H3C is the ideal conveyance for me to explain anywhere the province of the art in residence printing tech is headed.

While the H3C motionless lone prints in one matter at any stated moment, Bambu’s new “Swaptek” scheme lets the printer toggle in any of the eight another nozzles in six seconds flat. All nine tools are stored in a rack at the forefront of the printer, anywhere they can independently preheat to the accurate heat correct before they’re needed.

With Bambu’s new “PLA Palette” cyan, magenta, yellow, and pale filament, I printed a beautiful rainbow animal feather that emulated most of the another colors between those inks. With a mix of elastic TPU and rigid PLA filaments, I was capable to imprint a difficult wristwatch accommodation alongside an unified elastic watchband. With an ultra-soft “75A” TPU filament affirmative a harder 90A variety, I printed a breathable, wearable footwear that… didn’t fairly fit, unfortunately. (I’ll measure and try again.)

To be clear, Bambu didn’t invent toolchanger printers or color mixing. You could equal contend Bambu’s slightly rearward the curve, particularly following the $700-$900 Snapmaker U1 and its four-color, five-second swaps pleasantly amazed the community before this year. (Prusa additionally sells its hotly anticipated 8-tool INDX scheme for $2,249, although I’ve heard it has some issues.)

But I would have never bought former toolchangers for myself, since they don’t have a location to keep your filament dry whenever you’re not printing. (Wet filament is among the biggest remaining causes of imprint failures.) The H3C theoretically changes that by storing its nine rolls in an ostensibly airtight auto-loading receptacle called the AMS 3H. Two of those nine slots equal have built-in dryers that can hit 85 degrees Celsius and keep on drying your filament during you print, a big stage up from Bambu’s former AMS systems.

I haven’t tried the H3C for lengthy adequate to inform you if it’s prepared to buy, and I’ve certainly run into several quirks in my archetypal brace weeks of testing. I’ve had to commencement all sole imprint twice since the printer complains that its “toolhead camera” isn’t initializing properly, I formerly misplaced fractional a day of printing to a false-positive imprint nonaccomplishment detection, and the beta build of Bambu Studio provided to reviewers initially got confused whenever I tried to mix colors. (I’m told that final one volition be fixed by launch, and Bambu eventually provided several troubleshooting steps for the toolhead camera near to embargo time.)

You additionally have to burden elastic TPU filaments into the H3C manually, and I learned the difficult way that not all of the printer’s nine slots can really obtain a rotate of TPU without causing trouble. Slot #6 can burden norm filaments, but if you burden the elastic stuff, another printhead can snag it and logic a nasty jam:

This additionally isn’t a printer anywhere you can quickly repair a nozzle without tools, or use previous-gen toolless H, P, and A sequence swappable nozzles. It’s an all-new scheme that involves several insignificant disassembly, and I’m not certain concerning Bambu’s decision to depart filament in the toolheads between prints anywhere it power diagram moisture.

But so far, this seems akin an easier, additional dependable printer than the two-nozzle Bambu H2D was at launch. Other than the Slot #6 TPU jam, which Bambu really warns reviewers concerning in a division of the reviewer’s guide that I missed reading, everything I’ve tried to imprint has arrive out awesome so far — and without creating a mountain of small “printer poop” discarded whenever I toggle between colors! Dramatically reduced discarded is among the benefits of having additional nozzles.

With any luck, the forthcoming of 3D printing won’t fair be for hobbyists consenting to fig out which colors of filament they need to command before all and all project, or obsessives who shop dozens of colors in vacuum-sealed bags. Instead, it have to be additional akin today’s inkjet printers — an complete rainbow of color, prepared to go at a moment’s notice. And hopefully without all the inkjet printer shenanigans, of course.

Additionally, Bambu volition let all three of its existing dual-nozzle printers imprint alongside two distinct sizes of nozzle by next spring, including the H2D, the H2C, and the X2D.