Early INDX experience - good & bad
Hello. So, I'm not sure if you are all bored of INDX posts yet, but here is my experience. I bought the 8-tool version and it arrived on Friday. The assembly took me 1 day (from Saturday noon until 1 am, then I resumed working around 10 am and everything was ready around noon on Sunday; consider that I have to use crutches right now because of a recent accident and cannot stand for long. I skipped mounting the spool holders since I have built an INBXX for the spools and don't need them; it certainly saved a lot of time).
It was a very smooth experience. The manual on the Prusa website is amazing as always, with only a few small flaws which were pointed out by other users. The only thing that was bothering me (or rather funny) was that you are supposed to use screws from the disassembled parts, and for some reason, there were never enough of them. I had to use my spare screws (no idea if I lost them or if Prusa miscounted them, but it's no big issue).
The calibration was quite straightforward and I had no problems with it - only belt tensioning took some time, but probably it was my fault. Anyway, I had problems with loading the filament. One of the tools failed to load it properly, the filament got stuck, and when I wanted to unload the filament, the tool started literally popping up from the toolhead, causing a red screen of death (with multiple different error messages). I had to unplug the tool from the PTFE tube and quite aggressively pull out the filament with pliers. I was afraid I would destroy the tool, but luckily it survived and loaded the same filament without problems after that.
Besides that, I had one incident during the first print – the toolhead suddenly crashed and then started printing outside the model. Pausing and restarting the print saved the process, but it was lucky I was standing right next to the printer. I consider it early version (FE) problems that will be patched soon.
Other than that, the INDX works amazingly. It is quick and smooth; the speed of heating the nozzle is mind-blowing (a few seconds from 15 °C to ~220 °C), and the whole changing process is hypnotizing. The waste pieces are quite a bit bigger than I expected, but the amount of waste is impressive – only ~3g on a regular (19g) Benchy.
The FE front panel is really thick and you can barely see anything through it. Even calibrating the waste-bin through the small hole is quite... unusual. The best view is from the top if you open the lid. Prusa version of the front panel is clearly better (I saw it at the Maker Faire in Prague). The Buddy camera is tilted down way too much, and I would recommend printing a different holder to angle it up a bit. But the tools do not block the view.
That's it for my experience.
Here's my very first PLA Benchy – with minor flaws (the visible line) caused by both me and the mentioned crash (I used only 4 colours, since I am having some problems finishing the INBXX setup).
Happy printing!
