Chameleon owners out there?

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I saw another thread that mentioned the 3D Chameleon filament changer, which I’ve seen numerous times, but never jumped on, as I don’t have a lot of need for multicolor prints, and have been generally able to just get away with manual changes when I did.

I actually used to work with the creator, Bill Steele, back in the day, and I know him to be a good guy and super-smart, so I am already apt to trust it works, but I wanted to see if there were any folks here who had first-hand experience with the 3D Chameleon.

At a couple hundred bucks it’s not cheap (especially for those of us using Ender 3s) but since I have a few E3s, it might be fun to dedicate one to multi-color printing.

Would love to hear feedback from anyone who’s used this…

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I tried real hard to have a chat with him about it at RMRRF, but the times I went by he had a crowd and was pretty busy. Seems like a good idea and well implemented. I am following along to see what others think.

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Sorry you didn’t get a chance to meet Bill. I’m sure you’d like him…he’s built some crazy cool stuff over his career, including this:

and this:

though the latter apparently didn’t take off, at least not the hardware, which might be something to take into consideration with the Chameleon. Then again, with the lower price, there’s less at stake, so…

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I saw it at RMRRF. I talked to him a little. He showed how you just beed gcode to move the head to a well place microswitch. The microswitch causes the chameleon to change filaments.

My guess is that it works well, but there are some fiddly bit regarding getting the right amount of retraction and the right temperatures.

It was printing, and I didn’t see a purge tower. So that is neat.

It is always hard to judge performance from the expert’s printer. But if I had a reason to do multi-color prints, I would try it.

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The MMU3 from Prusa has got a wipe to infill or wipe to part you are not going to see later, which I think is pretty neat also.

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Nero 3D chatting with Bill about Chameleon at RMRRF

Beginning of the video shows off a Lulzbot Viking 3 optimized for Lulzbot’s own print farm. Some interesting design features.

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I’m sure Bill is a nice guy and smart, but I’ve been struggling to make it work for over a week. I’ve built two Voron’s, have been a working engineer for 35 years, so I’m not inexperienced. Most of the problem is the lack of decent documentation and many fiddly parts, all that have to be tuned correctly. Any one thing not right and it jams or doesn’t load. but the re is no step by step instruction to get the things right in order. I’m about ready to write it off.

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Short: https://www.3dchameleon.com v4 officially releases April at RMRRF 2024. Seems like a time and cost effective multi color/material solution? Some auto calibration added to mk4. Isolated components so no need to add switches/steppers-driver to your Printer’s controller board. Each 3D Chameleon supports 4 to 1 switching. Can daisy chain and combine to support switching up to 32 colors/materials… FAQ

Long:
Anyone happy Chameleon v3 or v4 users? (Known as Chameleon MK3 and Chameleon MK4, similar naming to Prusa).

Chameleon’s been mentioned a few times recently, e.g while chatting about ERCF https://forum.v1e.com/t/ercf-enraged-rabbit-carrot-feeder/39595, by @Jonathjon and others. So, dug around…

Chris has great overview and assembly walkthrough… Chris mentions bunch of tips throughout that seem helpful to ensure a successful working build.

Price for material and labor to install (“Less than 1 hour to install” claimed on website), seems more attractive than ERCF v2 given am not able to find any v2 kits yet.

  • Print the Parts (Chris recommends PETG) Printables
  • Channel, infrequent updates, https://www.youtube.com/@3d_chameleon
  • From https://www.3dchameleon.com…
    • $179 + shipping/taxes
    • “Less than 1 hour to install”
    • “Recent videos are talking about the Mk4 3DChameleon. See our FAQ page for details on the Mk4 and when it will be available. In short, the Mk3 that we are shipping right now is the identical hardware to the Mk4 base unit. The Mk4 will have additional optional accessories and new firmware when it is officially released at the Rocky Mountain RepRap Fest in April, 2024.”

I’ll confess, there’s some multicolor kitschy things I’d like to print. Mainly just as a ploy to get the family interested… However, am hoping to mostly use for multiple material functional/utility parts.

The relatively non invasive design seems very smart to me, can add to almost any Printer, MK4 firmware’s uses TMC sensorless homing features, detect rise in current draw to auto detect where filament is. So, latest firmware should be much easier to setup and auto calibrate.

So many technically great things. Assuming it works great, my biggest issue is with the color and shape of the green Y part. Hopefully that can be printed too.

If you wanted to add bang-for-buck multi material capability to your existing printer, while considering material and time cost, then, would you get this or something else?

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I read about this (mostly because of your posts) and I think that this seems easier to assemble then the ercf.

I am on X1C and the AMS and with the latest firmware it’s more quiet and less prone to filament getting entagled.

Which one do you like the best?

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Nice. I like what Bambu are making available to Customers that may not have time, or interest in building machines. A 3D printer that just works is great for so many Customers.

Mentioned on the ERCF v2 topic, but, as much as I like to build things, that project feels too early for me to try at this time.

Currently leaning towards Chameleon
But was hoping to hear more feedback on Chameleon from folks here?

Just learning about this, and needing auto rewind spool mechanism, and/or “buffer” for filament to temporarily reset when not loaded.

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SeeMeCNC used to sell these injection molded splitters. It was their way for multiple filaments. Each color added an extruder. I like this. I thought the chameleon had a cutter and is what made it really different. Since I have not seen a cutter, yet it looks like it is just saving half the steppers.

Now I am interested in step 3 of Chris’s video series to see how the tuning goes. If I just want two spools might just be easier to add a splitter and an extruder.

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The closer the splitter is to the hot end the less the rewind is needed. If you have it on the gantry rewind would not be an issue.

I would like two colors on at least one of my printers.

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translation: “here let me do all the google work and nutshell it for you on a platter” → THANKS! Your posts are always very thorough with a great overview and comparison. good stuff!

I am at my limit for fiddling with things. I’d just buy this one for sub $200 so I didn’t have to logistics all the parts. I would probably just be lazy and have it do auto changes between prints of different materials so I don’t have to reload by hand… TPU(if possible or maybe ABS) → PETG → PLA → ASA. or maybe only 2 colors of two different materials. ERCF does 8 or whatever you want to build, but it looks super complicated to start with, though ERCF has klipper integration and chameleon does not. I wonder if there is any further development going on there with chameleon. That would be a no brainer if this could integrate with klipper.

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I am still waiting for my MMU. :sweat_smile:

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It can’t be far away… it’s working on the 3.9

https://x.com/FilamentFrenzy/status/1754356788344840685?s=20

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They had an update a few days ago. It’s looking good. :slightly_smiling_face:

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3D Chameleon announced some hardware/firmware updates at RMRRF. Bill Steele was kind enough to take time to share ideas on how to integrate with my MP3DP V4 setup.

Curious if others here are already digging into the feature and quality improvements?

Also, Bill said everything is being open sourced, including the Y adapter. The firmware, the hardware, everything… Hopefully Chameleon’s progress will accelerate now with additional community help.

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I spoke with Bill Saturday morning after talking to the belt printing guys and their iron-on belts…

The chameleon was super cool because he showed they can use the waste for infill (std feature in prusaslicer) and how the thing worked. He had a Peopoly maglev printer though and that was amazing in and of itself, but that was his printer. He told me about it and the Peopoly creator came by and spoke to us about it and how it works. It was kind of a 2 for one informational deal. That thing was amazing, but to bring us back from the rabbit hole…

Having been on the fence for a ERCF for months and feeling lazy about not wanting to source all the parts and yet wanting an mmu or an ams, I’m tempted to take the plunge after talking with Bill, well at least I mostly was until I saw the switch for changing filament… it cycles through a menu based on how long you press the button. It appeared to be on the order of seconds for each filament change. If there are many changes, then this can really add up, but for under $200, it seems to be a really good option, though there is that time factor that would need to be accounted for in the long run.

Speculation:
If it is going open source, which I think would really make this more accessible, I wonder if we couldn’t get the cameleon controller (communication is all I2C I believe he said) to show up in Klipper as another mcu or off a pico that some of us use to run the shaper sensor and send commands directly and ditch the button… kind of like the ercf does. That would be low-hanging print-time reduction fruit. Then its instructions could be put in a klipper macro and more easily be controlled by the slicer. I guess there is only one way to try it… it is on my list.

@azab2c please share your installation journey.

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Yep, true. However…

Bill mentioned he’s implemented a variant of your speculation/idea already… Bill mentioned Klipper Users can configure macros that’ll send filament change commands directly from Controller’s end stop pin to Chameleon’s Mcu, within 100ms. He even sends commands on the same pin/wire that the regular switch uses, so…

With MK4 (and maybe MK3 even?), we can have filament mode change commands sent in ~100ms, and, we can still use a physical switch for testing/troubleshooting via the multi second taps. OLED (I2C?) support enables know which mode we’re in. A nice update. The Chameleon’s Mcu has protocol smarts to discern whether 100ms packet payloads, or multi second taps occurred. Neat stuff!

I already have the Chameleon MK3 kit sitting here gathering dust, which is very similar to MK4. Will share my progress, after reassembling again. :slight_smile:

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I inquired with Chameleon yesterday and Bill’s immediate response was not only surprisingly fast, but exactly as you described. The button is included, but optional if you instead connect to a controller pin and that is apparently pretty easy to do in Klipper. He mentioned their forum has some macro examples posted by some users as well.

At RMRRF, he showed me a box of parts that would ship, should I order, and it appeared to me to be complete, in that it included printed mounts and motors. It is for 4 colors I believe.

Contrasting that with the ERCF kits that Fystec sells on amazon, for example, are $65 less for 6 colors or $50 less for 9 colors (vs 4), includes all electrical in addition to a custom mcu circuit board (not sure if the octopus extra channels would make that unnecessary), but require several hours of printing and assembly, which may or may not be a showstopper. Last I looked, the ERCF kits were closer to $300, so the Chameleon was both more complete and less expensive, though that does not now appear to be the case. There is another kit builder on amazon selling similar units for $265 for a 6 colors, so that must be the one I was looking at previously.

To me, the Chameleon is a much simpler system with its filament splitter connections in the extruder feed tube (aka: reverse bowden?) rather than the filament multiplexor design of the ERCF with its single connection. I like the idea that one could basically connect and go, yet there are some addons that would be useful like the servo knife for cutting filament and its printed mount that are not included.

I’ll be watching your build with interest.