There is yet another waste-free desktop FFF 3D printer coming to market: the Co Print Quadro.
Co Print is a Turkish company that has been focusing on multicolor 3D printing for quite a while. They’ve previously produced a multicolor “upgrade kit” for most desktop FFF systems, which includes four color capability.
Like most 3D printer manufacturers, they’ve noticed the sudden shift away from filament swapping systems. These systems do produce multicolor parts, but at great cost: each time the color is changed during a print job, the nozzle must be purged. This wastes material, which can be up to 10X the weight of the intended part.
3D printer operators are realizing this huge problem, and when several providers announced waste-free FFF systems, the game was up for filament swappers. Bambu Lab, Prusa Research, Snapmaker all announced powerful systems that virtually eliminate waste of expensive filament.
Co Print, a company that produced a filament swapping accessory, had to make a change, just like all filament swapper manufacturers. Their answer seems to be the Quadro.
It’s an inexpensive bedslinger-style desktop FFF device, but as you can see in the image at top it includes four separate toolheads. Each one would be dedicated to a specific material. This means that there is no need to purge material, eliminating waste during color changes.
The toolhead design is quite interesting. All toolheads are permanently mounted on the Y-axis, and they simply slide in when active and out to the side when not. If, say, the leftmost toolhead is active, the other three are piled up on the right. If toolhead 2 or 3 is active, then the others are on each side, waiting for a dispatch.
This seems to be quite a simple design that should be easy to manufacture. You might think that the build volume will be compromised because the idle toolheads would block the active toolhead from reaching the entire build surface. But that’s not the case here: Co Print has simply made the Y-axis very long, and it accommodates the toolheads, apparently without compromising toolhead reach.
That said, they do not specify the build volume yet.
Aside from the color system, the Quadro seems to have the usual desktop FFF features, including:
- 600mm/s print speed (likely doing 0.1mm layers)
- Automatic XYZ calibration
- AI camera for fault detection
- Rigid frame
- Color touchscreen
This chart, provided by Co Print, shows the Quadro’s waste and time stats versus the usual competitors when printing a multicolor object. We can see that the waste is identical to Snapmaker’s U1, which also uses four dedicated toolheads — but in a different way.
It’s also clear from the chart how different all of the waste-free options are from the standard filament swapping systems on the right. For example, the X1 Carbon used 686g of waste for the job, while the Quadro used only 40g. That 646g of waste material would have cost around US$10 if using typical filament. Imagine doing that print ever workday for a year: that would total US$2600 in waste material, enough to purchase any of the machine in the chart, at least twice.
Co Print intends on launching the Quadro at a future date on Kickstarter, and we don’t know exactly when. However, they do drop significant hints that the price of the Quadro will be quite low. Their main image shows a “200$” with a downward arrow, suggesting that the early bird Kickstarter price could be under US$200.
If so, that would definitely make the Quadro the low-price champion of waste-free desktop FFF 3D printers.
There is a slight catch: in order to ensure the lowest price, buyers are asked to “reserve a spot” in advance for US$20. This doesn’t seem to be a deposit that would be subtracted from the printer’s price, but is a “fully refundable reservation”.
Or you could take your chances and see if you can grab a unit at a low price without a reservation.
Either way, it seems we have another competitor in the waste-free race.
Via Co Print (Hat tip to Benjamin)
