Sovol could be the next company to release a multimaterial desktop 3D printer.
The company has produced desktop equipment for many years and often provides “hints” of upcoming releases. This time, they’ve published a silhouette rendering of a new system, saying, “The Next Chapter is Coming.”
In the promo post on X, they write:
“Something new is taking shape.
Out of the shadows, a new era of colour is coming.
Multi‑filament. Multi-colour. And unmistakably Sovol.Not ready to show you everything.
But ready to give you a first glimpse.Stay tuned. The wait will be worth it.”
This is not so surprising, as their main competitors, Bambu Lab, Prusa Research, Anycubic, Creality, and Snapmaker, all have released various forms of multicolor 3D printers. Sovol will have to do so to keep up.
However, there are two forms of multicolor FFF 3D printing now on the scene: traditional push-and-pull filament swapping into a single extruder; and more advanced systems that dramatically reduce purge waste (INDX, Vortek, etc.). Which approach could Sovol be using?
What can we learn about this development in advance of the official release? All we have to go on is the mysterious photo. Let’s take a look at it in more depth to see what we can determine.
First, let’s adjust the exposure and contrast so we can reveal any hidden details.
First, there are six spools of filament mounted externally in two rows of three spools. There are also six tube/port attachments on the top of the mystery machine. So it’s very likely this is a six-colour system.
Second, this looks like quite a large system. If those spools are standard 1kg items, then we probably have a machine with a rather large build volume. This device appears to be at least as tall as a Bambu Lab H2D, if not taller. That suggests a build volume of 300 x 300 x 300 mm or larger. Perhaps it is 350 x 350 x 350 mm?
Aside from the six filament tubes, there is one more tube leading into the machine at a different port. The tube appears to be identical to the six filament tubes, so it is almost certainly another filament tube.
This could be for a separate toolhead dedicated to printing TPU, which is notoriously challenging for any filament swapping system: you can’t push it forward because it bends. Bambu Lab handles this with their H2D system by having a separate toolhead and input port, and Sovol just might be doing the same thing here.
If that’s the case, then the mystery machine could be a seven-colour system: six plus the secondary filament toolhead.
I also note that the spools seem to be mounted without an enclosure. That would suggest that there is no drying capability, but why would you launch a product without drying because all of the competitors offer that feature? In fact, the spools seem to be just sitting on some kind of shelf. Is this even part of the system or just a pile of spools on a shelf to show that this is a six-colour system? Is the “real” filament storage unit not shown?
Then there’s the question of whether this is a low-waste system like Vortek or INDX. This is very hard to determine based on the limited information in this image. However, we can see the filaments entering the unit at the top separately. This is different from a traditional filament swapper that has one tube heading into the one toolhead.
That suggests to me that Sovol is up to something here: it is different from the traditional multicolor filament feed design.
Could this be a toolchanger, with separate extruders for each of the six filaments? That’s possible, although the spacing of the six seems pretty tight.
Could this be something like Vortek or INDX, where hot ends are swapped? That’s also possible, and might account for the tight spacing of the six filaments.
Well, that’s about all I can derive from this quite mysterious image of the upcoming Sovol system. We’ll have to wait until the company provides more information, and they haven’t said when that will be.
