diamond extruder?

Just saw this on Kickstarter, wondering what you guys think of it. And thought maybe some of you might be interested.

[www.kickstarter.com]

Personally, I'm concerned with the weight and shape of this being a bit impractical, and I'm not entirely sure about the effectiveness of the insulation between the heater block and the E3D cooling blocks.

I will wait for reprap to release a similar thing as they already showed a working prototype.
Not to mention that maybe one day we (a friend and me) manage to finish a head based on color mixing and than filament colouring ... That will be a better option.

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It looks good to me, though as said it may be a bit heavy for the Ormerod - the specifications state that it weighs 250g but I don't know what the Ormerod hotend weighs to make a camparison. It will need more clearance, which also means that it will sit further away from the X arm and so exert more sideways leverage (twisting moment) on that arm which may be a problem unless you have upgraded to an aluminium part.

As far as the thermal insulation is concerned, I'd say that the proof of the pudding was in the eating - the video shows that it works fine over a very protracted period. The advantage over the RRP design that I have seen is that the mixing takes place in an extremely small chamber right at the nozzle tip, meaning that colour changes are faster and more positive and there is less propensity for the filaments to jam each other. Like any mixing head however, it has the disadvantage that all filaments are at the same temperature which is no problem for effecting colour changes, but is not so good if you want to print a mix of materials - say ABS and a soluble support material, or to incorporate a gasket or hinge from ninjaflex into your part or putting a nylon rib onto a PLA part etc.

Dave

Very interesting and it just makes me wonder if this would be a better choice than a Kraken. Both are pricey.