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On multicolor printing, why does the prime tower have to be as high as the current layer? (self.3dprinting)

submitted 1 month ago by Trail to c/3dprinting

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Recently bought an A1 mini with AMS, which has been generally great. I have been printing various things, but was thinking if the wasted filament during color changes could be further reduced.

I was wondering, if the color change happens on a high layer, why does the prime tower need to be built as high in order to flush when the color change happens? Is it not a good idea to have the prime tower not generated up until the color change is needed, and then start building it on the plate directly?

This would imply z axis movement whenever the color changes, but is it bad for some reason? It would take slightly more time, but the filament change already takes plenty of time so I assume it is not a factor of the already printed model cooling or so. Could it be something like we want to avoid unnecessary Z axis movements to avoid alignment mistakes maybe with the current layer, if the z movement is not considered precise enough?

Or it is just considered that the aavings of building a shorter tower any not that much comparatively? Anyone more knowledgeable has any thoughts?

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[–] Trail 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

To be honest I haven't tried without it (didn't want to risk the rest of the filament if it would turn out poorly), but I reduce the size to 15mm/15mm or so, plus flushing into infill/supports, and has been ok so far.

I'll try without it sometime when I print for my kid and don't care as much :)

[–] Trail 1 points 3 weeks ago

For the history I did try, and indeed seems to work well without a prime tower. I am doing some 4-color prints on 20 nozzle with 0.08 layers, 50% flushing volume, still looking great.

Takes ages, though :/