Here are the patents the photos are from
My thought is the side glass might be there so you can remove it for ventilation for PLA etc. As the machine is quite big and tall, removing the top glass might not be so easy.
For 2 colour prints or for prints with lots of 2 colour layers a double print head looks pretty useful.
However for 8-10 colour prints the benefits of only having two heads are fairly low.
Was hoping the new printer would have at least 4 heads, ideally with some level of parallel printing possible.
I’m disappointed it doesn’t have a cheeseburger maker. Perhaps the next rendered hoax that is speculated will include that feature.
I think the main purpose of this is for engineering filaments + support material. Or for black ASA panels with white text markings, that is my main use case for X1 and P1 right now for my commercial clients. Thats why im super excited about it as it will speed up my work by quite a bit. More of a pro machine as opposed to a multi colour printer for figures.
I think the model name breaks down like this:
H(igh temp) 2(nd generation) D(ual nozzle).
Im guessing a 350 hot end for PPS/PPA + heated chamber. Also the reason for no gaps on the doors, as they need a better seal to keep the heat in.
Cant wait untill its on sale, will be day 1 purchase for me.
This makes sense if the lettering for the other series’ falls into any convention at all, which I’m not sure we’ve ever been privy to whatever their marketing meant any of the letters to mean other than Carbon and Engineering, I’m trying to ascertain if there even was any particular meaning to others or if maybe they just sounded cool at the time:
X(eXperimental)1(st generation)
X(eXperimental)1(st generation)C(arbon)
X(eXperimental)1(st generation)E(ngineering)
P(roduction)1(st generation)S(-tier?SpecialEdition) lol
P(roduction)1(st generation)P(assive?/Professional?)
A(dequate?)1(st generation)
A(dequate?)1(st generation) Mini(ature)
Yep, doesn’t look like the top has a handle for easy opening, might be going the PRUSA Core1 route with a side panel, would be pretty amazing if it were motorized to open/close per job.
If you look at this portion of one recent patent of theirs, and translate the Chinese, you get a sense of how much math they are putting into trying to optimize this problem with just two heads.
This is just a small portion of the math/software optimization in the patent. A huge percentage of what BBL offers isn’t hardware, but the software that makes everything work really well (Dr. Tao has said this repeatedly, as has their European CEO.) Lots of algorithms in the patent.
All that said, when you get to having many filaments in one print it looks like the number of changes is reduced by a third maybe? That is meaningful but not groundbreaking. I could be reading this wrong though.
From the PDF:
Translation:
" In this example, the preset first plurality of initial material combinations may refer to all grouping cases where the listed M materials are divided into two groups, and at this time, one of the groupings may be taken, and the initial repetition table obtained above is modified based on a modification policy that modifies the repetition degree corresponding to two materials in different groups to 0, so as to obtain a new repetition degree table, and a new total repetition degree is calculated. It should be noted that, the traversal extraction may be performed on all the packet cases, and the modification of the repetition degree in the initial repetition degree table may be performed according to the modification policy, so as to obtain a plurality of new repetition degree tables and a plurality of corresponding new total repetition degrees, and at this time, the calculated new total repetition degrees may be compared with all the packet cases, and the packet with the smallest total repetition degree may be selected as the optimal packet.
Taking the example that the number of the spray heads of the 3D printer is 2, one spray head corresponds to 2 material tanks, the other spray head corresponds to 3 material tanks, assuming that the 3D printer prints the multicolor model shown in fig. 4, the used materials include materials No. 1-5, namely m=5, when the multicolor model is sliced, the materials used for each slice layer can be traversed to obtain the repeatability between every two materials, and the repeatability is recorded in a 5×5 repeatability table, specifically as shown in the following table 1:
for all the grouping cases where the 5 materials are divided into two groups, the enumeration :(1,2)(3,4,5)、(1,3)(2,4,5)、(1,4)(2,3,5)、(1,5)(2,3,4)、(2,3)(1,4,5)、(2,4)(1,3,5)、(2,5)(1,3,4)、(3,4)(1,2,5)、(3,5)(1,2,4)、(4,5)(1,2,3)、(1)(2,3,4,5)、(2)(1,3,4,5)、(3)(1,2,4,5)、(4)(1,2,3,5)、(5)(1,2,3,4) may be performed according to a manner of violent enumeration, where each grouping may be extracted and then the repetition degree in the table 1 may be modified, a new repetition degree table may be obtained and then a new total repetition degree may be calculated, after the total repetition degree corresponding to all the grouping cases is calculated, a grouping with the smallest total repetition degree may be taken as an optimal solution, for example, in the result obtained by performing the calculation according to the grouping cases and the table 1, there is a grouping 1: (1, 2) (3, 4, 5) and packet 2: the total repetition of (2, 3) (1, 4, 5) is 107, the above-mentioned group 1 and group 2 are the combination with the minimum total repetition, at this time, any one group can be recommended as the optimal group, that is, the determined target material combination can be (1, 2) (3, 4, 5) or (2, 3) (1, 4, 5), and the material placement is performed according to the above-mentioned target material combination, so that the number of times of changing the material of the nozzle in the subsequent printing of the multicolor model can be optimized as much as possible."
yeah makes sense if your using 2 ams and 2 different heads, in the way that you put all lighter colors in one and all dark in the other I guess you could save filement and time
Sure, but you’re not going to see it on that poor quality image even if it was there, its a tiny gap
Its also worth pointing out, that those patents are from 2022 or older, and that not everything that gets patented actually gets made
Just saying
The one I have been referencing vis-a-vis optimizing filament switching with two heads is from this year:
The reflection looks quite accurate and consistent to be honest. All generative AI that I know of wouldn’t be able to create such consistent reflections.
The “missing part” in the reflection seems to be a handle centered at the front side of the lid. Possibly to help opening the lid? The curvatures at the left and right sides of this handle are also consistent.
Of course, it can still be a fake render.
Does everyone remember last year around this time when the leaked pictures of the X1E spawned this thread and many like it all over social media? The picture has been removed from this thread so I’ll refresh everyone’s memory…
Well of course that image is fake. It’s way to clear. Go take a picture of it then take another picture of that picture but wipe some grease on the lens prior. Once you have that then send it to a friend so they can leak it onto a random chat out there. Only THEN it will be real.
It’s also lacking a cheeseburger maker.
Man I hope this “leaked” picture is wrong. The front identification and lifting tab on the front of the build plate is too short to be useful. By not extending past the midpoint of the heat bed, we can only left it and install it from the corner which will be annoying.
If they are trying to put two extruders and hotends on the same toolhead and use the gear to spin them, I don’t know what to say.
like SERIOUSLY?!
lmao
What’s so hard to believe? It’s one of many methods for having multiple print heads on a 3D printer. People have used similar configurations. One of the YouTubers I follow made a similar setup, though without that central motor and gear; Instead using end stops to rock the mechanism back and forth.
What I find kind of interesting looking at the patent is that they don’t only outline a “V” shaped mechanism, but a horizontal one that would have similar results. This one would probably need additional mechanisms to prevent the 2nd extruder from dragging or interacting with the print, but that’s not really something that needs solved in the patent itself.
This side-by-side more closely matches the blurry zoom of the not-so-amazing starting photo, of the maybe real or not photo of the new printer!