AtomForm officially launched its new Palette 300 3D printer in San Jose last week, and the company is taking a very different approach to one of multi-color 3D printing’s biggest headaches: waste. Instead of relying on the usual purge-heavy process every time the printer switches colors or materials, the Palette 300 uses what AtomForm says is the world’s first automatic 12-nozzle swapping system. That means the printer can swap to another nozzle that is already loaded with the next filament, rather than flushing out the old material and starting over, delivering less wasted filament, faster transitions, and cleaner multi-color prints.
Multi-color printing is often slow, messy, and wasteful, especially on prints with frequent color changes. With the Palette 300, AtomForm says nozzle swaps are up to 50% faster and filament waste is reduced by up to 90% versus traditional purge-based multi-material printing. Paired with up to six RFD-6 filament units, each holding up to six spools, it can support up to 12 materials at once, with as many as 36 colors in a single system. That sounds pretty darn impressive, and all of the 3D makers and journalists I spoke with at the event were excited to test this out when the Palette 300 hits the market.
The rest of the hardware specs are ambitious by consumer-printer standards. The Palette 300 has a 300 x 300 x 300 mm build volume, a maximum print speed of 800 mm/s, acceleration up to 25,000 mm/s², a 350C hot end, a 65C heated chamber, hardened steel extruder components, dual cooling fans, and FOC step-servo motors. AtomForm's goal is to allow makers to move well beyond basic PLA toy printing and into more serious multi-material and engineering-grade work. AtomForm says the printer supports everything from PLA and PETG to more demanding materials such as PC and PPA.
The companion RFD-6 is not just a spool box. MOVA says it combines drying, storage, and feeding in one unit, with a dual-zone design that can dry filament at up to 85C while another spool is being fed into the printer. The company is also leaning hard into automation, with automatic nozzle identification, positioning compensation down to plus or minus 0.02 mm, active auto-leveling with three independent Z-axis motors, vibration compensation, PA calibration, app-based monitoring, and onboard camera-based print monitoring.
Thankfully, the engineers at AtomForm didn't get so caught up in the specs that they forgot about the design. The blue-backlit 12-nozzle unit inside the printer looks more like something out of a Star Wars warp drive than a home 3D printer. High-quality materials for the cases and glass, along with a large bright display on the main Palette 300 unit, round out the overall premium feel.
As a launch statement, the Palette 300 gets my attention. If MOVA’s nozzle-swapping approach works as advertised, it could address some of the most annoying compromises in multi-color FDM printing instead of just asking users to tolerate it.
MOVA says the Palette 300 will be available in the second quarter of 2026. Pricing has not been announced. For more information visit atomform.tech.
[Image credit: Josh Kirschner/Techlicious]
