Mosaic Palette 2 Pro (1.75mm) for Multi-Material 3D Printing on 1.75mm Printers

This machine is just amazing but before buying one I suggest you get either the canvas hub s with it or buy a raspberry pi 3 or 4 and set up octoprint. Do not use aSd cards or you'll be wondering why the hell you can't get the colours to go in the right places. Since I swapped to using octoprint my prints with mosaic have been stunning. The machine learns while printing and makes sure that any problems are fixed on the fly. It's ability to do this is worth every penny.

Really good piece of kit

Upgraded from a palette + and wow what an upgrade. I’ve been printing non stop with it and not had one failed splice with default settings. Works great with my Prusa mini added with a raspberry pi 4 loaded with the canvas hub software.

Follow set up instructions properly and you won’t have issues, still the coolest 3D accessory on the market today.

Nul difficulté à prendre en main ne parlons même pas des bug de la canvas

The box it came in was fine but the packaging was damaged in the corner and 2 of the tape tabs holding the box together where torn open. Upon further inspection I could see scuff marks inside the buffer and all around the unit. Looks like it was mounted at one point. Scratches near mounting ports. This for sure a used unit. It does appear to be operational though. It appears to be referbished.

I have been using the palette 2 pro for a few weeks now, so this is just an initial review, I'll update more as I get more experience. The setup I am using with the paletteUpdate: March 1, 2019 (changed to 4 stars)TLDR: made several changes and am now getting successful prints. The software is still very basic and lacking features.Using accessory mode (sd card and no connection to printer) I could not successfully print anything but a few simple two color key chains. Even with two color models success seemed to be dependent on the number of transitions, more transitions would always result in failure.I updated the palette's firmware to 4.0.2 (Jan 15, 2019 update) and then 4.0.3 (Feb 14, 2019 update).I switched from using accessory mode to connected mode using a raspberry pi with octoprint and mosaic's palette plug-in. I did not install the canvas plug-in and have not used canvas. While mosaic does not make this clear (I even emailed support over this) you can use connected mode without canvas.With chroma 3.1 you can set it to use connected mode, and have chrome generate .mcf files instead of the two files (.maf and .maf.gcode) used in accessory mode. You then upload the single .mcf file to octoprint, can select it and tell it to print.The octoprint plug-in is pretty basic, and there is lots of room for improvement but it seems to work better than accessory mode.My extruder calibration has not changed, though I did double check it.I also noticed that the first splice at 170 mm length was always good and the palette got out of sync on later splices. So I updated the base splice length and eventually switched to advanced mode with the shortest length longer than the original default, and make sure to select color strength when setting up prints.With these changes I have now been successfully printing 3 color prints with 50+ splices. I have not moved up to larger prints yet as I have been trying to let the palette gradually calibrate (the palette is suppose to learn from successful prints).I will note that I still have problems with the software generating moves that can ruin prints by moving the hotend across already printed areas of a different color without a z-hop. This can leave streaks on the print that can't be removed.I will update again once I have more info on more complicated, larger prints.Original Review: 3 starTLDR: It works but it is finicky, and the software will fail on some prints. The software seems to be the biggest problem so the experience should improve as Mosaic release updates.Printer: Voron 1.x corexy using a bowden setup and bondtech QR extruderOS: LinuxSlicer: Simplify3D v4.1.1Post processing software: chroma v3.1.1Palette firmware version: 2.1.2Because I am using Simplify3d + chroma the palette is being used in accessory mode (using an sd card to load the .maf files and start prints). I will not be using mosaic's Canvas slicer, so I can not speak to its quality or how it interacts with the palette.Setup:The setup is not hard, but it does require some reading and watching some videos. Mosaic did a live stream (it is now on youtube) showing the setup print and they should redo just this portion of the video as a setup tutorial it was very helpful.My first calibration print succeeded, and it helped me learn how to setup prints. I should note subsequent prints don't require all the steps of the calibration print and it would have been nice if their video covered the difference. But it should only take a print or two to understand the differences even without them being called out.Hardware:So far I am impressed with the hw end of the palette it is very well thought out, and assembled. I have had two issues so far:1. The attachment from the palette to the printer. The palette uses a custom width bowden tube and a clip that attaches to your extruder via velcro. The extruder clip would not fit on my printer so I can not speak to how well it works, instead I downloaded an stl from Mosaic from thingiverse that is the base model of the tube clip and used freecad to join it with the bondtech QR filament guide stl, making a custom attachment that should have worked. It didn't, the tube popped out of the clip everytime I used it. I could have resized it to make it tighter and that might have worked, instead I created custom bowden tube clips one for the extruder end and one for the palette. This works well and I can use regular bowden tube. The only thing I had to do on the palette was set a custom tube length in the firmware settings. I am not sure why Mosaic went with the system they did, as my current setup is better and allows me to easily replace the tube and change the tube length and match it to the printer and location, their custom size tubing with custom ends will be hard to replace.2. its tracking wheel seems to be out, the amount it is out varies so it hard to say by how much, but for example when loading filament it will ask for me to load somewhere around 650 mm of filament (because of bowden tube), but I will actually load somewhere around 620 mm before it tells me to stop and start the print. This could be a problem on larger prints as it could lead to the print getting out of sync. Its something I am watching for but I don't believe I have done a print large enough for it to be a problem.Software:Unfortunately this is where the palette seems to have issues. After setting up a print in the slicer (see the tutorials they are very helpful), the saved gcode must be loaded into the chroma software for post processing. Chroma will generate the files actually used to perform the print, unfortunately it is slow and seems to have issues.Chroma and the Firmware update applications are Electron apps (at least in Linux). Basically this means they are a web app wrapped in a browser engine and packaged into an app. Electron apps are always bloated, slow and general just not as good as regular applications but at least they work.Chroma presents a fairly simple interface and is easy to use. After setup its just a matter of loading a gcode file (with the option of setting tool head filament type/color) and letting chroma process it and then saving the results. Chroma will generate two files a .maf file for the palette and a new gcode file for the printer. This part of the work flow is direct, works well and the software provides a nice guide of what you need to do.However its object view is poor (slow and many artifacts when drawing) and it doesn't provide a proper gcode view of the movements. You can load the gcode it generates into a gcode viewer but chroma removes all tool change commands so the images are monochromatic and you can not visualize the changes and failures that chroma inserts in the print. It really needs a proper gcode viewer so that you can visualize the gcode it geneates with the filament/tool changes synced to the gcode.Chroma unfortunately does more than just insert gcode to generate the purge and reduce tool changes. It breaks generated tool paths apart and reorders them in strange ways. Example when I print two keychains in the same print side by side, printing them with a single filament results in one keychain layer being printed first, followed by the second. After chroma processing part of one keychain perimeter will print then the infill of the other, then it will jump back and print more of the others perimeter, and then back to the other and print its perimeter and then jump back and do the infill of the first, and then it will do its tool head transition/purge and similarly butcher the paths of that color. It does seem to work except the gcode its inserting to move the head doesn't take into account like zhop and avoiding crossing the print, so it will drag oozed color (say black) across the print leaving unwanted defects. This isn't a problem for side walls but is for top surfaces.In addition some times the conversion just seems to fail, I have prints that consistently have 1 bad layer in the middle where the rest of the print finishes correctly with everything in sync. Another curiosity is that using multiple objects to reduce amount of purge to print seems to cause more failures. Printing 1 object good, 2 objects good, 3 prints mostly good with one bad middle layer, 4 objects complete failure.Other problems I have noticed is purge to infill does not seem to be working, at least not with the prints I have watched. I do expect a purge block but none of the infill has any of the discoloration and the purge block does not seem to be smaller.Other:I have I yet had success with a 4 color print, I can't say if this is user error, software related or hw problems yet. I have only tried this a couple of times as I have wanted to make sure I have everything working well with simpler prints before I start chasing problems in 4 color prints.

I got into 3D printing in February with my first Ender 5. About a month later I got a second Ender 5. I spent hours and hours researching how to make my printers the best they could be. I also have modded both to the point where the frame is the only stock part. The trick to getting the best out of the Palette 2 is to know your extruder and hot end. If your filament delivery is not consistent, you will get bad results.I wanted to experiment with multi color printing and I didn't want to mess with manual filament swaps. I am very pleased with the Palette 2 and Mosaic's warranty support. I have had one failed print out of about 20 and that was due to a failed switch. Their support team sent me a replacement part within a few days with zero hassle.Suggestions: Convert your printer to direct drive with a Bondtech BMG Extruder. Convert your hot end to a Microswiss or E3D hot end. I use the Microswiss with retraction set at 1mm with very little stringing. My "pings" from the Palette are always 99.x and I have never had a color bleed or other issue with my prints. Buy a Rasberry Pi 3 or 4 and set up Octoprint. Don't bother with their Canvas device, it is very under powered. If you are not using Octoprint, don't buy the Palette 2.Pros: This device works very well if your printer is working very well. If you are not a tinkerer and dislike tearing down and upgrading your printer, I would suggest avoiding this item. The engineering that went into this device is amazing. I still stand and stare at this thing running like a kid in a candy store. Its great! Warranty support is very good. I got a reply from their staff on a Sunday and the replacement part was received in less than a week from Toronto, Canada.Cons: Some of the parts(sensor switches) might be a little iffy. I had a switch fail after less than 100 splices, which ruined my print job. The Palette Pro comes with spare parts, so I was able to continue printing. I dislike their Canvas cloud slicer. It allows you to paint a model with color for printing, but the slicer is a dumpster fire and needs a lot of work. I use Simplify3d with their older Chroma app and I get very precise prints. Also, I ran a print job with a lot of Glow in the Dark filament and I noticed some wear and scoring on some of the surfaces inside the Palette 2. I am not sure if I will run anymore abrasive filament due possible excessive wear.Overall, this is a great device for multicolor printing as long as you know what you are doing. Please don't plug this into a new out of the box printer and expect it to work. I hope this info was helpful.