Phrozen breaks the Ice with a four color 3D printer

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By Denise Bertacchi
published

Known for Resin, Phrozen’s first FDM printer is gunning for Bambu Lab

Phrozen
(Image credit: Phrozen)

Phrozen’s design team is swinging for the fences with their first ever FDM 3D printer, launching today on Kickstarter. The Arco is a large format Core XY 3D printer with a four color multi-filament system and Klipper firmware. Phrozen is known for high-quality resin printers, such as the recently reviewed Sonic Mega 8K S.

The Arco has a print volume of 300 x 300 x 300 mm, making it the same size as a Creality K1 Max. It promises a top speed of 600 mm/s with a max acceleration of 30,000 mm/s². It has an all metal hotend, optional enclosure and the ability to custom print your own case.  The Chroma Kit – a Bambu Lab style four spool material feeder – is also optional. The Chroma Kit promises to allow dual material printing, such as printing PLA and PETG together. These two filaments are generally incompatible, but work together brilliantly for easy to remove supports.

The Phrozen Arco Kickstarter price starts at $649, with global shipping expected to begin in July 2024. The machine will retail for $849.99 for a stand alone printer, and $1,148 for a combo unit that includes both the enclosure and Chroma Kit.

Tom’s Hardware is slated to receive a review unit in late March, so at the moment all of this is on paper. If Phrozen can succeed with its goals, the Arco could be a phenomenal competitor to Bambu Lab’s X1 Carbon. 

It appears that Phrozen has been studying their competition and are offering a printer that answers all the critics of Bambu Lab. The machine is larger, open source, customizable, upgradable and promises an easier to maintain hotend.

Phrozen’s Arco is inspired by the Voron 2.4, with a build plate fixed to the base for great stability. It also runs vanilla Klipper firmware and is open source, meaning users will be free to tinker, mod and repair the machine as they see fit. It also leaves the door open for collaborations with 3rd party manufacturers, which Phrozen has already hinted at being in the pipeline.

It will come with a custom slicer, dubbed PIXUP Slicer. Phrozen is also working on a library of files and an app for remote access. The machine comes with both a USB port and WiFi, and as it is running open source Klipper, will not need internet access to function.

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Denise Bertacchi
Denise Bertacchi
Freelance Reviewer

Denise Bertacchi is a Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering 3D printing. Denise has been crafting with PCs since she discovered Print Shop had clip art on her Apple IIe. She’s been a freelance newspaper reporter, online columnist and craft blogger with an eye for kid’s STEM activities. She got hooked on 3D printing after her son made a tiny Tinkercad Jeep for a school science project. Excited to learn more, she got a Creality CR10s and hasn’t looked back. She loves reviewing 3D printers because she can mix all her passions: printing, photography and writing. When she’s not modding her Ender 3 Pro or stirring glitter into a batch of resin, you’ll find her at the latest superhero movie with her husband and two sons. 

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3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rohde1017
    Admin said:
    Known for Resin, Phrozen’s first FDM printer is gunning for Bambu Lab

    Phrozen Breaks the Ice with Four Color 3D Printer : Read more
    Can anyone explain to me why 4 spools the default and not 5 spools for the 'color support'? Asking as doing a CYMK print, that is not a lithophane, it seems like a support material like PVA would make a great 5th spool, so you could print complicated full color designs and have rinse away supports for the finer details.
    Reply
  • Conor Stewart
    rohde1017 said:
    Can anyone explain to me why 4 spools the default and not 5 spools for the 'color support'? Asking as doing a CYMK print, that is not a lithophane, it seems like a support material like PVA would make a great 5th spool, so you could print complicated full color designs and have rinse away supports for the finer details.
    There is no particular reason for using only 4 spools. However most multi material systems struggle with PVA, for example the Bambu Lab AMS isn't compatible with PVA. PVA and other soluble supports are best used with multi toolheads printers.

    The problem with full colour designs on printers with a single nozzle is the amount of wastage, again multi toolheads printers are better for this.

    Also with the Bambu Lab AMS, you can attach up to 4 of them to a single printer, allowing up to 16 colours in a single print.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    rohde1017 said:
    Can anyone explain to me why 4 spools the default and not 5 spools for the 'color support'? Asking as doing a CYMK print, that is not a lithophane, it seems like a support material like PVA would make a great 5th spool, so you could print complicated full color designs and have rinse away supports for the finer details.
    Also, physical size.

    The 4 roll AMS pod is as wide as the Carbon printer. This Phrozen looks to be pretty much the same.

    5x 1kg rolls would end up wider than the printer box.

    Not necessarily a critical factor, but something to think about.
    Reply