Today MOVA officially launched a new, 12-color desktop 3D printer, the AtomForm Palette 300.
If you’re not familiar with them, MOVA is a “smart living brand” company that produces all sorts of interesting stuff, including robotic pool cleaners, mowers & vacuums, along with personal care and household gadgets.
Now they’re adding a multicolor 3D printer to their portfolio.
Like most desktop systems, the AtomForm Palette 300 uses the FFF process with 1.75mm filament. It has a quite large build volume of 300 x 300 x 300 mm, and all the usual convenience functions.
Of most interest on this device is the multicolor system.
Background: Today there are many filament swappers that push and pull filaments to/from a single nozzle. This works, but produce enormous amounts of waste when used colors are purged.
Several companies have recognized this issue and have developed solutions, such as Snapmaker’s U1 multiple toolhead system, Bambu Lab’s Vortek and Prusa / Bondtech’s INDX systems.
Here, MOVA has opted for an automatic nozzle swapping system they call “OmniElement”. They explain:
“Palette eliminates the need for manual tool changes with its automatic 12-nozzle swapping system. Materials can switch seamlessly while the print continues, keeping the workflow smooth and uninterrupted. Nozzle swaps are up to 50% faster, and the system can reduce filament waste by up to 90% compared with traditional purge-based multi-material printing.”
So this isn’t quite a purge-free system, but instead it attempts to minimize the amount of purging by using the multiple nozzles in the most optimum manner.
However, swapping nozzles can introduce new issues, which is why most manufacturers avoid that approach. The main issue is that nozzles must be absolutely positioned precisely in 3D space in order to continue accurately depositing material on a print. MOVA explains how the Palette handles this challenge:
“At the core of the Palette 300 is its integrated nozzle architecture combined with a smart positioning system. The printer automatically identifies each nozzle’s attributes, including color, material, and diameter, ensuring the correct nozzle is used for every stage of the print. It also compensates for microscopic variations in nozzle alignment in milliseconds, achieving positioning accuracy of up to 0.02mm for consistent, precise results.”
Another interesting feature is print speed. Today most desktop units print at around 300-500mm/s (when printing 0.1mm layers) due to flow capacity. However, the Palette can print at up to 800mm/s, which could be quite a bit faster than the competition.
Filaments spools are stored in the accompanying RFD-6 drying system, and it looks like you can use up to three of them in a single job. That means a print job could theoretically use 36 different colors. That’s quite a lot of colors, and would cost around US$700 just to fill the cabinets. But you can bet that someone wants to do a 36 color print.
The MOVA Atomform Palette 300 appears to be quite an interesting machine that includes a few features not found on other systems. However, this is a brand new vendor in the 3D print space, so we’ll have to watch how they are accepted.
Via Atomform
