Prusa Sells Out of INDX Conversion Kit for CORE One Printers
Prusa released a Bondtech INDX conversion kit for their CORE One 3D printers and it sold out immediately.
The 3D printing industry and community are still trying to figure out the best way to handle multi-material printing. Do you unload and load filament each time? Do you switch between entire toolheads, each with its own extruder? Probably neither, because Bondtech may have finally developed the perfect solution: INDX. Recognizing that, Prusa released an INDX conversion kit for their CORE One 3D printers and it sold out immediately.
Bondtech’s INDX system is really, really clever. It combines the best elements of traditional toolchangers and Bambu Lab’s Vortek, resulting in a system that is very affordable and very performant, without any real sacrifices.
Here’s how it works: each toolhead is passive. It has an induction-heated hot end, a small and lightweight frame with mounting points, and a filament pathway. Importantly, that filament pathway has a cutout just before the hot end and that is where the extruder drive wheels grip. But the extruder itself, along with all of the active electronics, remain on the extruder carriage.
This setup keeps the toolheads very compact, very reliable, and very inexpensive. You can fit a lot of them on a small rack in the 3D printer’s enclosure. But INDX still provides all of the benefits of a traditional toolchanger, because each toolhead keeps its filament between swaps — no feeding or purging necessary.
An INDX conversion kit for the Prusa CORE One/+ will allow for up to eight toolheads, which is a very generous number. There is also an alternative conversion kit with four toolheads. Both are now sold out, but were priced at $999 (899€) and $749 (669€), respectively. More batches should be coming.
There will also be conversion kits for the CORE One L and fully assembled printers that come pre-installed with INDX toolchangers.
Prusa seems to be going all-in with INDX and I think this is the best move the company has made in several years. Prusa’s MMU models are complicated and unreliable, while their traditional toolchanger is expensive. INDX solves all of those problems.
Of course, INDX will not be exclusive to Prusa. Bondtech will be licensing INDX to other companies and, presumably, selling it directly to consumers. But if you already own a Prusa CORE ONE or you are loyal to Prusa and need a new printer, going for INDX is a no-brainer.