INDX Build Completed and printing? Thoughts!
Sooooo my INDX is complete and now I am printing again. So what do I think?
Well a lot. Now I should preface this with this is my first Multi-Material printer set up ever. I only have run single extruder Prusa machines since I got into 3D Printing back when the MK2 was the big dog. I have built an Mk2, a Mk3 and a Core One from the kits (not upgrade except for the relatively minor mid-system updates like Plus and S upgrades)
So the build....took longer then I had expected. If you read my other post things we going well. Who knew the last bit was going to be....rather difficult. The spoolholders gave me a lot of grief. More then I had expected. I cursed. A lot. I spent in total like....10 hours on the build I think? And like 3 hours on the Pre Flight stuff. The calibration of the belts were the hardest. I am convinced my belt must just be longer then its supposed to be from the factory because on my Core One build I had to crank the belts really tight too to get it to where it needed to be. This I followed the guide ran into issues with the belt calibration and spent like one hour alone trying to crank it to where I think it needed to be. That was my only real struggle there. I did run into an error with the tools but the discord folks helped me out with that in short order. It involved tightening and loosening each side of the belt tensions and watching the numbers and adjusting accordingly. But we got there in the end.
Nozzle Calibration needs work. Trying to look through a tiny window and adjust things and parse what exactly they want me to do was....yeah I am not sure its even calibrated right I am just hoping it is.
So Pros:
- I love how I can have different materials queued up and then use those to print things without having to pull off a spool and feed a new one. Small quality of life upgrade but one none the less.
- Multicolor is fun! I print a lot of things because they look cool. There is a lot of models I think will work really good with multicolor and I look forward to it.
- I am looking forward to mixing PETG with PLA for support purposes. It is my biggest pet peeve and i can't wait to put this to the test soon.
- Heating of the nozzle is stupid fast. Like... STUPID fast. Its a wonder to see it in action.
- When this is all polished and cleaned up and iterated I bet it will be one of the gold standards if not gold standards in multi-material printing....which brings us to the....
Cons
- First off the hardware is....good like the bondtech stuff feels very solid. Very well designed. This is the extruder assembly and the Tools. But the rest of it? Feels at times like it needs some more time to cook I think. Its not bad per-say but....I feel like will be replaced come the next iteration refinement.
- Loss of the print area-We knew it was coming I was hoping it was going to be less then it was planned in the end either through some improvement in design or slimming of parts but...yeah it still hurts (the 15mm from the front which I think is still less then the mentioned 20mm early on) but this just leads to....just how much space is feeling wasted in the Core One overall all for the sake of the Mk3, Mk4 heatbed, Part commonality is and can be a good thing but it really makes it feel like the Core One L is going to be the primary flagship in the end especially with the how much space we lost in the front and I am looking at the large space in the back of the bed going like "We could move the bed back a few MM like in the L?" But that would require like a redesigned heat bed or way to route wires. I am not sure but I feel like it can be done via an electrical adapter and better design work on the connector part and yes it would likely mean a new Z Gantry. Maybe something as an upgrade or iteration later.
- It feels....very incomplete. The printer profiles and filament profiles are very very barebones. I am sure these will come sooner then later now that its released but still. You can tell this is an early generation and its lacking the polish we have gotten from the Mk4 to Core One to the Core One Plus. Fortunately its all software and can be fixed and will be fixed but if you use this for production? I wouldn't upgrade yet. It's going to be tinker heavy. I have had thermal runaway errors from blobbing during filament loading due to the Nozzle Cleaning lacking...something, to random tools just crashing the entire printer with a preheat error (once) and random layer shifts even on single filament prints (and I am using a samsung USB drive not the prusa one)
- The side indents make even less sense now. I was mixed opinion of them when I saw the Core One but I chalked it up to the need to use the Mk52 heatbed. But man its feel like...just wasted space now. Especially with the spool holders there. I am sure some people will find use and I know Prusa sounds like they have some ideas for the one but...the one on the left? Especially given on the 4T model is where 1-4 spoolholders reside feels like a weird design decision. While it makes sense most people read left ot right and so you want to number 1-8 from right to the left but if you have the 4T edition the whole right side is going to be useless anyways and most mods for that are just for the spool holder that was there. I am sure we will see some other things but if they just put all the spools there for 1-4...then at least the left side coul still be used as storage for the insane number of mods people have made for it.
- The LED Bar and Visibility is just bad. We need a new LED bar preferably higher since you will need the camera to see whatever is going on. And a better angle to boot. Instead of slapping the bar on the bottom on the front panel where its useless the first few layers it should have been relocated. We are running wires again anyways this was a weird time to not do it.
So my TL;DR? Plan on this taking longer then expect, expect a lot of weird glitches and issues sometimes with reasons and mostly none, and its very much still a WIP IMO but a fun one I am looking to enjoy.
My Wishlist-New nozzle cleaner solution (though I am happy we have a wipe at all it does struggle on the V shaped one, new LED bare placement or just a new light altogether, and fixing the heatbed placemen.