Sovol M1D promises seven-color printing with IDEX tool-changing setup

Sovol is aiming straight at the messiest part of multicolor printing: the purge waste, long waits, and calibration headaches that turn a supposedly easy upgrade into an afternoon project. The M1D tries to cut through that with DualX, an IDEX tool-changing system that Sovol says can handle up to seven colors or materials in one job, using one fixed head and six swappable toolheads.

The pitch is bigger than just color swaps. Sovol’s launch materials say the M1D supports multi-color, multi-material, mirror, and copy printing modes, along with a six-channel filament system, auto Z-offset, XY auto calibration, eddy-current scanning, and camera-based monitoring for spaghetti detection and foreign-object alerts. Each head has its own heater, so a tool can be preheated before a swap instead of stalling the job while the nozzle comes back up to temperature.

Sovol is also framing the machine as a full-size desktop printer rather than a lab experiment. The M1D is listed with a 300 × 300 × 350 mm build volume and a claimed top speed of 600 mm/s. That puts it squarely in the territory where hobby users and small production shops start asking the same question: does the flexibility actually save time, or does it just move the pain from purge towers to setup screens?

Pricing makes the answer even more interesting. Sovol is taking the Kickstarter-first route, with a super-early-bird price of $1,499 and a later MSRP of $1,799. The VIP reservation page goes a step further, offering a $20 refundable deposit for one-hour early access and a VIP price of $1,399. That puts the M1D well below the industrial tool-changing systems that inspired this class of machine, while still far above the usual single-nozzle desktop box.

Sovol has been teasing the idea for weeks in its own forum, where users including Torsten Schmitt, Oliver, mich0111, and HandyDoodads were already speculating about a new IDEX or tool-changing printer in April and June 2026. The company, which has built its brand around budget printers and open-source friendliness, is clearly betting that the market wants more than another filament-swapping compromise.

If the M1D works the way Sovol describes it, the win is obvious: cleaner soluble supports, less waste, and easier TPU-plus-PLA jobs without babysitting purge cycles all night. If it does not, the extra hardware will only make a familiar multicolor problem more expensive.