Snapmaker’s Innovation Fund Winners Include True Multi-Nozzle Printing, Expanded Firmware, and ACE Pro Compatibility for the U1
Some 66 projects community-built products and projects made it into Snapmaker's first consideration round for funding, with 20 selected for cash rewards.
It’s taken three months, but Snapmaker is nearing a major milestone in its quest to make developing for its U1 3D printer (and 3D printing in general) pay. The Snapmaker Innovation Fund, launched in June, put $150,000 cash up for grabs, with $50,000 reserved at launch for public and community projects the company had already engaged with to that point – pointedly, the Orca Slicer development team, and RatDoux, developer behind the Full Spectrum color mixing system that is now folded into Snapmaker’s slicer as a main feature.
The other $100,000 pool is available over two rounds of awards, judged 80/20 by an expert panel and the community, respectively.
Three tiers of prize are up for grabs: three first-place projects are up for $5,000 each; seven second-place projects each get $3,000; and 10 third-place projects each getting $1,500 each for a grand total of $51,000. $100,000 looks nicer on paper than $102,000, we guess.
The judging is over for phase 1, with all of the chosen winners currently open for review should anyone dispute the legitimacy of a project’s ownership. There are 66 projects listed in total in contention for the phase one prizes, but the process has whittled that number down to 20 innovative projects that take Snapmaker’s printer further.
The three first-prize projects all expand the U1 directly in diverse ways. LixNix’s Full Multi-Nozzle Printing is a g-code generator for OrcaSlicer that let you use different sized nozzles distinctly within the same print. Given the U1’s four toolheads, which can each be outfitted with a different size nozzle, you could, say, use a 0.2 mm nozzle for high-detail outer walls in combination with 0.6 mm for inner walls and infill – and at different layer heights, too. The implication there is of shorter total print times and the ability to preserve more detail in finer parts without suffering the painfully slow print times that usually comes with.
The U1’s operating system is the focus of paxx12’s Snapmaker U1 Extended Firmware, which does exactly as the name suggests – expanding the U1’s firmware beyond the boundaries Snapmaker ships it with. It’s a custom build that adds in SHH access, giving you the ability to patch into the printer via a command line interface from a networked computer or similar device, making it easier to add functionality and generally tinker under the hood of the printer.
Alongside this is decay71’s Multi-ACE Pro integration, a firmware extension that grants the U1 compatibility with Anycubic’s ACE and ACE 2 Pro filament feed devices. Multi-ACE Pro can be installed and maintained as a part of the Snapmaker U1 Extended Firmware.
Other prize-winning projects include several multi-channel filament feeders designed to expand the U1’s printing capabilities beyond its physical four-filament limit, web-based tools that sophisticate and simplify the texture and full color model handling for Full Spectrum-like printing, and improve interoperability of files generated for Bambu Lab 3D printers, preserving color and profile settings and translating them to a format Snapmaker Orca and Snapmaker Space can use.
Some of the projects featured existed independently of the innovation fund, but it’s a credit to Snapmaker that they recognized that tinkerers gonna tinker. Rather than trying to lock it all down and control the experience of its machine, they’re allowing projects to flourish, gathering them in one spot for all to see, and incentivizing participation.
According to the original announcement back in the summer, phase two of the innovation fund was supposed to have kicked off at the beginning of October. Things appear to have slipped a little – we’ve reached out to Snapmaker for confirmation on the exact timing and will update accordingly.
You can check out the full list of entries and nominated winners over on the Snapmaker Innovation Fund webpage.
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