Snapmaker U1 four-toolhead 3D printer launches in Australia

Snapmaker has launched the Snapmaker U1 3D printer in Australia, bringing four-toolhead, multi-colour and multi-material printing to JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman. Pre-orders are open now at A$1,299, ahead of the printer going on sale on 15 October with an RRP of A$1,399.

The U1 follows a Kickstarter campaign that raised US$20.6 million from 20,680 backers, which Snapmaker says makes it the most funded 3D printer ever.

Four toolheads instead of one

Most multi-colour 3D printers feed every filament through one shared nozzle, unloading, reloading and purging each time the colour changes. It is slow, and it wastes a lot of filament.

The U1’s SnapSwap system holds four independent toolheads and swaps between them in about five seconds. Source: Snapmaker

The U1’s SnapSwap system uses four independent toolheads instead, each loaded with its own colour or material. The printer swaps the whole toolhead in about five seconds, and because the materials stay hot, there is no purging. As long as you load the materials first, no intervention is required.

You can also mix materials in one print, from soft, flexible and even fabric-like filaments to rigid ones, plus water-soluble supports. An optional top cover unlocks high-temperature materials such as ASA. The build volume is 270 x 270 x 270mm.

Flexible, fabric-like materials are among the U1’s options. Source: Valens Quinn

Shiny filaments and multiple colours combine in this doughnut printed on the U1. Source: Valens Quinn

Designed for beginners

Snapmaker is pitching the U1 at mainstream home users, not just professional makers. It calibrates itself, reads RFID tags on filament spools, and uses failure detection to stop a print if something falls on the bed or the print turns to spaghetti.

Setup guides come printed and in the Snapmaker app, which also handles remote monitoring and has tutorials built in. The open-source Snapmaker Orca slicer covers models from other sources.

There’s a handy timelapse mode too for creating videos of your creations to watch back later.

Less waste, less waiting

Snapmaker says the U1 produced up to 85 per cent less filament waste than shared-nozzle systems in its own tests.

At the launch, it showed us. The same multi-coloured blue-tongue lizard was printed on a conventional multi-colour printer and on the U1. The first left a plate piled high with purged filament. The U1 left a few small scraps.

Filament wasted printing this lizard on a conventional multi-colour printer. Source: Valens Quinn

The waste from printing the same lizard on the Snapmaker U1 – a huge difference! Source: Valens Quinn

Almost any colour from four spools

Full-spectrum colour mixing stacks very thin layers of translucent filament to create new colours, so you can mix your own and assign them to a model. Prints take longer, but the results speak for themselves.

This parrot was printed on the Snapmaker U1 using full-spectrum colour mixing. Source: Valens Quinn

Translucent PETG is on the way, alongside wood-look PLAs.

Who is Snapmaker?

Founded in 2016, Snapmaker makes 3D printers, laser engravers and CNC machines, and has more than 100,000 users worldwide. It handles R&D, software and manufacturing in-house.

“We designed the U1 to make multi-colour and multi-material printing faster, cleaner, and easier to use,” said Sheila She, Head of Global Go-to-Market at Snapmaker.

Price and availability

The Snapmaker U1 is available for pre-order now at JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman for A$1,299, with JB Hi-Fi adding bonus filament to pre-orders. It goes on sale on 15 October 2026 at an RRP of A$1,399 and comes with a one-year warranty.

For more information, visit the Snapmaker U1 website.

We will be putting the U1 through its paces soon, so watch this space for our full GadgetGuy review.

The post Snapmaker U1 four-toolhead 3D printer launches in Australia appeared first on GadgetGuy.