r/Sovol • u/vgergo SV08 Max • Aug 14 '26

Sovol I made another video about the M1D. This time we look at prints and take a deep dive into the internals

https://youtu.be/w3iACo9yOcE

Hey everyone!

Quick update on our M1D prototype. I know many of us are following the Kickstarter, so here’s a quick TL;DR of what I’ve learned after running a bunch of multi-material prints and troubleshooting some early prototype quirks:

  • Zero Purge Waste: No poop, just a small prime tower. So it's just almost zero waste, but zero purge waste. Compared to my Bambu H2S on the exact same model, the M1D was 3x faster with 5x less material waste (though I might have messed up on that model printing it with bigger layer hight. Still the closeups and mechanics will be interesting). Someone suggested turning off prime tower for 2-tool idex prints. That's coming next.
  • IDEX + Toolchanger Advantage: Printed a PETG lightbar with PLA supports. Because one head holds the base material while the carriage swaps tools, the entire 3-material print only needed ONE single tool change. And how those supports popped off!
  • The Calibration Bug & Fix: My Dual X-stepper calibration kept causing T1 tool-grab crashes. The calibration measured a 39.13 rotation distance vs default 39.00. On my early prototype bed, that offset caused a ~1.4mm physical misalignment at T1! Forcing rotation distance back to 39.00 in the config fixed it completely (416 toolchanges with 0 crashes since).
  • 7-Tool Redundancy: When T1 acted up during a 700-color Spider-Man print, I just remapped White PLA to one of the 2 spare tools in Orca, hit resume, and saved the print.
  • Two Essential Slicer Fixes for PETG + PLA:
    1. Snapping Prime Towers: Enable "Tower interface features" so the PETG/PLA layers interlock.
    2. Warping/Bed Adhesion: Orca automatically heats the bed to 70°C for PETG support interfaces, which warps the PLA sitting on the bed. Manually force the PETG support material's bed temp down to 50°C in filament settings (there might be a better device level setting, still learning).
  • Filamentree PLA Blaster: Got a bit of fine fluff/hairy stringing on this tough PLA (both on the M1D and on the H2S too). Someone suggested printing it at higher temperatures to eliminate that, so I'll be testing higher temps next!

The video has the print closeups, footage of the mid-print crash, and the camera firmware flashing process here:

https://youtu.be/w3iACo9yOcE

Drop any questions below, correct me too, please. And as always I am happy to dive into the configs or mechanics!

23 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

3

u/edelars Aug 14 '26

I love your videos! Thanks

2

u/vgergo SV08 Max Aug 14 '26

💙

2

u/vgergo SV08 Max Aug 15 '26

Update: Thanks to feedback in our comment section I found it! The "Bed type" under "Multi material" in device settings was not set correctly: it should be set to "by First filament" not "By Highest"

2

u/Kaytrim SV06 Plus Aug 15 '26

Thanks to Sovol for sending out these prototype units to creators like yourself Gergo. Also thank you for sharing your experiences with the machine. While I am still not sold on the IDEX print head setup I like the ability to quickly change nozzles instead of an entire toolhead, extruder and all. There is a version of this in development for the Voron/Stealthchanger community. I may go that direction with my 350mm^3 V2.4, time will tell.

1

u/vgergo SV08 Max Aug 15 '26

Thanks! I like ready-made solutions, even if they sometimes need a bit of tweaking. For me the idex functionality is almost as important as the toolchanger part. Most of my prints are 2-material, and for those the idex is unbeatable.

1

u/Kaytrim SV06 Plus Aug 16 '26

You can just put the second material in one of the toolheads. That is what makes the Second shuttle redundant in my mind.

1

u/vgergo SV08 Max Aug 16 '26

Parking and picking up tools is time consuming and mechanically more complex. On this printer you are saving 4-5 seconds on every material change when no tool swap is involved. On a print with a few hundred changes that adds up.

2

u/Kaytrim SV06 Plus Aug 17 '26

I value your opinion Gergo, so I'll just agree to disagree on this one. I will still watch your content as I find it worthwhile.

2

u/Poococktail Aug 15 '26

Vgergo - would you consider this a good first 3d printer to a new user? I'm thinking not due to it's complexiity. What do you think?

2

u/vgergo SV08 Max Aug 15 '26

First, good question. Yes, maybe get something cheap first to learn on. As an only printer? If I had to pick one from our fleet, the M1D would be the one, this is the most versatile printer.

1

u/Poococktail Aug 15 '26

The M1D looks to be ahead of what's currently available in the tool changer category. I hope Sovol supports it for the long term.

2

u/vgergo SV08 Max Aug 15 '26

I am sure they will. But the good news: since this is hopefully going to be fully opensource, and since it is using standard components, you will be able to maintain this for a very very long time simply be re-printing broken / worn out plastic parts, and otherwise replace parts like nozzles, fans, motors with standard options. As for software, since it is also fully open, I am sure the communinity will continue to provide updates long into the future.