Creality Announces Multicolor 3D Printing Coming Soon
Creality has announced it will bring multicolor 3D printing to its products for the first time, a welcome bit of news.
During its 10th anniversary event and live stream, Creality announced a feature that 3D printing enthusiasts have been requesting for quite some time. The company unveiled the upcoming K2 Plus and a new Creality Filament System, allowing its 3D printers to handle multicolor printing for the first time. This is a functionality other manufacturers, such as Bambu Labs, have offered for years.
Using Multiple Colors in 3D Printing
With Bambu Labs’ AMS, owners of those 3D printers can set up their builds to automatically change colors in the middle of print jobs. This makes printing gorgeous models much easier, requiring less post-process painting. You just use the slicer software to identify which color should be used for specific sections of the print. Then, the printer switches colors as needed without you needing to intervene. This would otherwise require pausing the print job, changing the filament, and then resuming the job.
Just like Bambu’s AMS, the new Creality Filament System (CFS) will allow for printing in up to 16 colors. Each module supports four different spools of filament, and you can connect up to four CFS modules to the 3D printer. Creality announced it will integrate RFID technology into the CFS modules and its filaments, just as Bambu does. This allows the 3D printer and accompanying slicer software to automatically identify the color of filament loaded into each bay.
In addition to the RFID technology, the CFS units will include a humidity and temperature readout for monitoring the current conditions inside the box. Temperature and humidity have a big impact on the success of your 3D print, so keeping them within tolerances for your filament is crucial.
YouTuber and 3D printing expert Sam Prentice was able to go hands-on with the K2 Plus and CFS products. These readouts, he learned, are unfortunately only for monitoring. He thought, as I did, that the CFS unit might incorporate drying and heating technology, but it does not.
Beginning Availability on the New K2 Plus
The upcoming Creality K2 Plus will be its first 3D printer to get multiple filament support using CFS. This printer will offer a build space measuring 350mm cubed (350x350x350) with an extruder capable of heating up to 350º C.
The K2 Plus will run on Creality OS, a fork of the open-source Klipper 3D printing firmware. This is the same software included on other newer models of the company’s printers, such as the Ender-3 V3 KE.
The K2 Plus is set to start shipping globally on July 31, 2024. Pricing was not yet available at the time of this writing.
Bringing Multicolor 3D Printing to Current Models
If you’ve recently acquired a K1 model or any other Creality 3D printer running Creality OS, you might feel a tinge of regret at not waiting. After all, multiple filament support is a huge deal and makes it so much easier to produce beautiful models.
Not to worry, though. Creality has confirmed to me that the CFS modules will be available as upgrades to many of the company’s currently-selling models. This includes the K1 series as well as the Ender-3 V3 series of 3D printers. Exact release dates and pricing, again, are not yet available.
Trust and believe, though, that the minute the CFS upgrade kit becomes available for one of my Creality 3D printers, I’ll be adding it to my arsenal and offering my thoughts on how well it stacks up against Bambu Labs and others.
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