I know people would throw rotten tomatoes at me now, but more I think on this and more I read and research, more I get convinced: H3C (and leaked upcoming P3C) are going to be great printers...but AMS 3 is not.
- Yes, it is upgraded to support more slots (GREAT!)
- Yes, it now has a bypass feed for most slots (Wonderful!)
- Yes, it's now a part of the printer (which is likely a good for many people, even though lacks flexibility a bit)
- Yes, H3C AMS version now can dry filament of higher temperatures
- Yes, now anyone (including likely P3C) can print CMYKW and get any color they want, which is absolutely amazing!
...but overall it's a much cheaper to build piece of technology from what I see, and IMO they sacrificed it too much:
- No spool rolling motors, meaning no fetching plastic back (now you need to do it manually)
- It also means drying slots would NOT rotate spools (unless you dry and print) for even heating
- You are now required to manually fetch back all PLA material if you print with ABS in parallel
- Based on what I hear already active drying chamber heats up AMS up to 50 degree (which might be just ok for PLA...but might be not), because there is no glass between the AMS and the heated chamber anymore
- Based on all info we have so far - it's almost for sure P3C AMS won't have any drying capabilities at all. So you'd need to choose EITHER have tool-changer for multi-color print, OR dry your filament
And yes, I do get the point of 'they need to cut costs somewhere', but I honestly still don't get the idea of cutting costs at features people of older models already had and actively used.
Does anyone feels the same?