At Mosaic, we’re constantly looking to push the boundaries of 3D printing, and what our Palette technology can create. This means focusing on a number of different aspects - from speed, to reliability, to the range of materials you can combine together on your printer.
There are a number of different variables that affect the performance of Palette, the two most important of which are the quality of your filament, and the quality of your printer. It may seem obvious, but if you use poor filament, or your printer is not running well, your Palette prints will be less reliable.
We’ve also noticed that the life of a Teflon tube can have an affect on your user experience. The Teflon tubes inside of your splice core will typically last an average of 5,000 splices; however, if your tube wears pre-maturely, you may experience an extruder jam due to a large splice (leading to a failed print).
Over the past six months, we’ve completed a significant amount of testing and are incredibly excited to announce Endurance Mode for Palette 2, Palette 2 Pro, Palette 2S, and Palette 2S Pro.
Endurance Mode
Endurance mode was created to make your Palette 2 more reliable with a wider variety of filaments, and to increase the length of your tube life. Extended tube life means fewer print failures, and a more reliable experience overall.
Endurance mode turns on a new splice algorithm for Palette, which has less compression, more heat, and more cooling. This algorithm has been proven in our testing to extend tube life by around 50%. This extension means less failures, and a more reliable, repeatable experience.
This new mode was designed for the user who wants to optimize reliability, and give their prints the best possible chance of success.
Endurance mode is essentially a new splice tuning approach (2,-3,2) which will put significantly less wear on your tubes. When completing testing at scale, we noticed that splicing with our 0,0,0 algorithm led to less repeatability than with the Endurance Mode algorithm.
In the new tuning approach described above, 2 is a heat value, -3 is a compression value, and 2 is a cooling value.
We noticed that splicing with (2,-3,2) led to maintaining smaller diameter splices for longer, which reduces extruder jams. It also reduced the chance of early Splice Core jams, although this is codependent on using filament that has diameter specifications within the recommended range (+/- 0.03mm or better).
Some of our users have been using the Endurance mode splice algorithm for months with great results. The one drawback is a slightly slower splice speed; however, we believe that given the magnitude of the extension of tube life and overall reliability it is well worth the trade-off for most users. Of course, Palette 2S and Palette 2S Pro will still maintain their speed benefits over their previous versions, however these benefits are rated with Endurance mode turned on or off for both units.
Getting the most from Endurance Mode
Endurance mode is available in the latest firmware release (V9.0.9), made public a few days ago. We always want you to have the best experience possible, and to do so we suggest that all users update their firmware and begin using endurance mode.
Endurance mode will be automatically switched on for both the Palette 2S and Palette 2S Pro units. For Palette 2 and Palette 2 Pro users, you will need to navigate to preferences to turn this mode on manually.
If you have tuned your splicing settings, it is important that you re-tune your splice settings after switching into endurance mode. If you currently run your splices at 2,-3,2 we recommend setting these back to 0,0,0 and turning Endurance Mode on. You can read more about splice tuning here (Link).
You can find the latest version of firmware at this link here (Link).
Note - P2S/P2SP Users will also need to update, as the Endurance mode firmware was released after the product left our facility.We’re really excited to be bringing Endurance mode to help extend your tube life, and increase your Palette’s reliability.
Edit (November 12, 2019): Orders from our EU warehouse will begin shipping on November 12 (today), orders from our US Location will begin shipping on November 19. Apologies for any lack of clarity in our original post!