For me it feels the polar opposite (ify ou mean with consumer space prebuild 3d-printer it would be a low):

• For the hobby price class, there are better parts than ever to choose from e.g. Orbiter v3 extruder, bacon bed leveling probe, Klipper + Mainsail, good budget linear rails, affordable high thread angle ballscrews, low-cost servos (e.g. JMC motor) and so on.
• projects like the ERCF seeing a big push in popularity
• ToolChanger is on the verge of being mainstream (slicer & firmware support is getting better) [jubilee printer, Voron mods, RatRig vcore mod, Prusa XL, …)
• significant attention to push beyond classic FDM/molten plastic

None of this will be at FormNext this year as it is a business. It isn’t an enthusiast/hobby convention like RMRRF. Maybe in three years, it could be in the first commercial consumer 1machines.

China. That’s where you can still get the Cobalt indicator and subsequently on Amazon, Aliexpress or ebay.

The upside is the fantastic color change, which is why some still prefer it and why it is probably still being made.

In Europe there is an alternative blue indicator that is cobalt-free, but it is more of a blue to brown/very dark red colour change, so not great either especially after a few drying cycles.

the granules are blue when dry and turn purple/red when they no longer absorbs humidity.

Don’t buy those. Orange gel is the “new” blue.

The reason why the blue gel was phased out decade(s) ago is the CoCl2. Along all of the hazards are H350i and H360F (cancer and reproduction [aka. your plan to have kids might not turn out that great]).

While orange gel doesn’t have as good of a color change it is significantly lower risk and shall be used.

Nice to see Piocreat improved this printer. Last year they used V-roller on a $2k+ printer.

Was very interested in it but decided against it as the price didn’t matched the hardware.

What is the plastic of your choice?

PLA, PETG, … behave like a very slowly flowing liquid as such the print will deform/expand (creep).

But- the market has left them behind. XL is a great idea but awfully expensive and maybe not perfectly implemented.

E3D toolchanger launch price in 2019 was 2700 GBP. Adjusted for inflation it is in today’s money 3300 GBP (approx. 3900€). A Prusa XL is 3700€. For toolchangers the Prusa price isn’t out of the ordinary.

The issue is the performance/reliability isn’t there to back this price point. Having to worry about printed parts bending on a 3.7k€ machine is laughable. Having issues with a heatbed is laughable. Support having trouble resolving these issues/identifying what exactly is broken isn’t a great overall picture.

here you go: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6595547 Likely a old version with 0.4mm clearance that does work. If not message me and I could send you a later revision with 0.23mm that definitly works.

How does it work?

one direction: pretty obvious the spring bends out, the teeth pass through the other direction: the spring gets slightly pulled/stretched (the leading tip of the teeth pushes it) which causes the tip to be pushed against the block (left in the picture) and blocking the mechanism.

In other words, this mechanism works by having a physical path for the compression of the spring but in the opposite direction when would need to stretch to move pass the teeth it is stopped by a wall/block.

The teeth is indeed a critical aspect. It has to be symmetrical as this assembly is mirrored to block the rotation in the other direction.

An alternative to this would be printing the spring with the contact surface separately and inserting it into this print (pause at layer height, insert part, continue print) allowing other geometries (that would overlap with the teeth if printed in place) and pretension. The downside is it’s a manual task and one more separate part to keep track of.

This is small and the tolerances of the center hub cause the teeths/“gear” to move approx. 0.3-0.5mm of centre. This means what you see in the CAD/slicer isn’t how it will look once printed. I had to narrow the gap down as much as I could to get the largest contact area. If you make it a sled on one side there is less material/surface area.

A further consequence is that the tip of it doesn’t touch anything as such you could remove the very tip to adjust the sound signature. The feeling is slightly changed but primarily this replaced the high-pitched plastic sound with a deep tone.

The nice aspect is that in the blocking position, it is a solid connection meaning it can take as much load as the teeth (tip) can support (hence the trying to maximize the contact area there). The spring element is only there to return this blocking “bolt” into position after a teeth passes through.

If you consider sharing mechanical design concepts as not in line with the spirit it’s fine but others are likely interested in seeing how things work and takes it as inspiration for their designs.

Go and recreate it. Nobody stops you. Could provide the STL but wouldn’t be worth a lot as this is so dialed (tolerances) that it comes down to the specific printer/extrusion system. There are older revisions with huge tolerances (0.4mm) that work but wear down rapidly. To print this exact version it needs to be capable of printing with 0.23mm gap/tolerance between parts.