The Prusa Core One+ INDX is an interesting upgrade to the base FDM printer by Prusa, featuring eight independent extruders – hence the INDX – that in theory should allow for multi-material and multi-color printing with very little purge waste. As [Thomas Sanladerer] found out during his experiences with this printer, there are a lot of issues with this machine, including the ability – or lack thereof – to print with non-Prusa filament.
Although the premise is solid, with a claimed 0.013 grams of purge waste per color or material change along with pretty nice dual-gear Bondtech extruders, the first major hurdle that [Thomas] encountered was that the mandatory calibration sequence on starting a print is designed to only work with Prusa’s own filament and its specific material properties. This resulted in an inability to print with Voxel PLA until [Thomas] removed this sequence manually from the g-code.
This is when [Thomas] found out that the entire print sequence uses the material presets for Prusa’s filament, resulting in a failed print. The results from the manual calibration are also not saved despite the display claiming it does, making this calibration on starting a print absolutely mandatory.
Other issues found are the useless position of the camera as it’s now blocked-off by the INDX hardware, with even manual peeking into the print chamber being heavily obscured by the contraption that holds the extruders. This makes even checking that filament has loaded correctly is borderline impossible, never mind ogling the printing process.
Although there’s a lot to like about this INDX upgrade to the Core One+, the above and other issues discussed in the video make it look somewhat shaky next to competitors like the Bambu Lab H2C and Snapmaker U1, as well as Prusa’s own XL toolchanger printers. During [Thomas]’s print test comparison between the XL and the Core One+ INDX there was no contest that the XL simply works, whereas the INDX even struggles with some Prusa filaments.
The Prusa slicer has presets for their own filament, but you can easily specify any brand or specification of filament. I can’t see how using a different brand of filament would make the entire printer unusable.
You can also add the filament name and parameters on the printer controller as well. Saves a lot of warning messages when printing.
I’ve had a lot success reaching out to Prusa support for any issue. Obviously they want you to use their filament, but the worst they can say is no they can’t help.
It might help to review what Thomas said specifically (copied from the transcript, which appears to be of good quality): “VoxelPLA is a slightly different formulation that is just a little more flow-happy, but that means that with the cleaning and probing cycle apparently designed and tested by Prusa only with Prusament, it oozes out just enough to break the calibration cycle.” At 4:24 in the video you can see material oozing from the nozzle, and Thomas specifically reports that Prusa support told him to try with Prusament to resolve the problem.
As I understand it, this printer does calibration by sensing force on the nozzle, so it is very plausible that even a tiny amount of oozed material could account for failed calibration by changing the relationship between the actual metal nozzle tip and the point at which force is measured.
I don’t know about the quality of VoxelPLA in particular, but I do know I see a lot of my filaments oozing like this on my MK3s. Without naming brands, I’d say I generally try to buy what I perceive as A/B tier filaments, not luxury like Prusament is positioned to be but not trash. Assuming what Thomas experienced is typical for non-Prusament filaments, it’s enough to make me want to wait until a firmware update that lets him or other folks sound the all-clear about this issue.
Voxel pla is quite decient.
I willw say I’ve noticed the same failure (nozzle contact probing) with a prusa core1 and a prusaxl before with various filaments. The rutiene seems to be rather sucuptable to any filament that oozes
from what i have seen on my xl its not the oozing per se that causes the problem its that there is a squishy mess at the tip of the nozzle which hardens or soften depending how near it is to the metal. this makes the calibration fail since the printer cant get a stable probe value on the same point and just fails.
I’m pretty opinionated when it comes to PrusaSlicer. It’s great until it isn’t, and then it is beyond frustrating. At work we have an older 3D printer that doesn’t handle all the comments that get dumped at the end of the gcode well. No matter what I try to do, I cannot get PrusaSlicer to stop this behavior. I can mostly work around this by using the post processing function to strip out all the comment spam from the gcode via scripts. This post processor step is supposed to be the last thing done to the file, but it actually isn’t. There are other comments added AFTER the post processing step. The issue reports I’ve read around this “feature” paint a pretty clear picture that they’re not interested in allowing people to turn off their comment spam.
I have this set up, and I’ve had no problem with multi material prints with non-Prusa filament. I’ve done breakaway supports and mixed pla-tpu prints with no problems at all. I wonder if maybe there’s been a firmware or Prusa slic3r update since this review was written. The complaint about the tool head holder blocking the view of the print is true.
I think the Prusa-only filament profile issue is because they used the new beta for Prusaslicer 3, which only has profiles for Prusa filaments at the moment. So that issue might not be a problem on 2.9.6 or future versions of 3 once it leaves beta and they release new profiles.
I love my Prusas but my buddy has the MMU and he has nothing good to say about it. He offered to give it to anyone in my friend group for free and nobody would take it.
I hear that Bamboo Labs MMU works pretty well. I don’t understand why Prusa doesn’t give them a taste of their own medicine and rip it off.
Hi, I have MK4 with MMU and it work awesome. Almost zero problems with it.
MMU2 or 3? The 2 is kinda buns. I hear the mmu3 is good but I don’t have the gumption to try (trial and error) again
I have the INDX and mine wont work with PETG from Inland (Microcenter) or Elegoo. Im actively working with support but it does not work out of the box unlike my early build of the Core One coming from the MK4s. He does speak truth on the issue specifically this feels like a early product where the calibration and long term testing is missing. I wish it was allowed to bake in the oven a little longer.
Dont get me wrong. I love this printer. It kills printing with PLA, but I need a stronger material. Also the filament changing is still plagued with issues. My tool head flys off about half the time.
I’ve never seen Prusa deliver something that works well on day one. They always seem to have calibration issues which often get caught by early reviewers and then focused on in hope of resolving before the wider release. Seems like they missed the goal and are dealing with a classic case of forgetting that the lab rarely reflects the field.
Like, ofcourse they test extensively with Prusament in the lab as they make the stuff. They use as much as they want and any waste goes back into the loop. It is for they themselves the cheapest and most effective way to test and calibrate. BUT if your testing material does not reflect the “worst-case” scenario you might find outside. You will get this.
On the review. ngl, If you make a beta firmware release not being advertised and having a bug a point of exasperation. I’m going to raise an eyebrow.
I got my INDX 8 tool setup installed last weekend. Ive been able to do multi-material prints (ASA / PCTG / HIPS) but there is a catch. The loading / purge sequence ignores that the CHT channels are full of filament. So if you have PLA loaded, and go to load something like PC, the toolhead is going to cook whatever is in teh CHT at the new temp, which in my case, locked up 2 of the nozzles, and they had to be cleared with a heatgun (covered in a video on my shop YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtOw6vBqFqw)
Ive found a few bugs, reported them, and Prusa has been generally accepting and helpful with the feedback and replacing tools. Interestingly enough, my INDX kit was all injection molded, the replacements from Prusa were the SLS tools from the Founders Edition run.
As for the bugs Ive found, ive been trying to get assistance with anyone else that has an INDX. 2 things I found that I would likle to see if its just my machine:
Test 1: Run 2 temperature towers. 2 of the same filaments. Standard M104 gcode change at appropriate layers. See if it does the right temps, or if it just makes up what it wants on the tool change.
Test 2: Run multiple models with color changes. Cancel one of the models, and cause a filament channel to run out of material. Mine ignored the runout signal, and caused the states of both sensors to get weird (block one only worked on the channel it ran out of, block 2 showed as disconnected. )
It seems a bot of a generalization to say the INDX does not work with third party filament when he only show results with a single third party filament ( that be coincidence sponsored the video ). I think a more thorough test is in order before making that statement. The complaint about Prusa Slicer not being optimizated for this printer is a double edged sword because people regularly complain about the slicer not working well for third party printers.
Would like to see a shootout with some other popular filaments.