Big Gutenberg Pt. 1 – Prusa XL Introduction and Capabilities

During the summer of 2025, the Makerspace acquired the 5-toolhead version of the Prusa XL. The new printer allows us to go beyond what our Prusa MK3S/+ printers could do in terms of speed, reliability, print quality, and much more. This blog post will go into the specs and highlights of the new system.

For starters, unlike the MK3, which can only do multiple colors on different layers (without the MMU (AMS) addon), the Prusa XL can make use of its toolchanger design to swap toolheads mid-layer. Comparing a toolchanger to a multiplex system like the MMU is like comparing using one paintbrush to using many. If you want to do multiple colors on one brush, you need to wash the brush before and after every use, which adds time and waste. A toolchanger is like having multiple brushes for each color; you simply grab the one you need and put it away when you are done. This significantly increases the speed of color changes compared to systems like the MMU, which need to unload, retract, switch color, reload, and purge before they can print a new color. In contrast, a toolchanger wipes the nozzle, switches color, wipes again, and prints. This results in a time reduction from 1.5-2 minutes down to roughly 30 seconds and reduces purge waste by a significant amount as well. While a competing system from a company like BambuLab may be faster in terms of actual print speed, the time the XL saves on color changes more than makes up for its somewhat slower speed.

While Prusa’s MMU3 already significantly cuts down on waste compared to Bambu’s AMS, the XL takes it a step further with its mostly hollow wipe towers. The XL also has another advantage in that it can print with zero waste from material changes, assuming you have properly dried filament, which further decreases print time since it no longer needs to pass each nozzle over the wipe tower.

The Prusa XL’s toolchanger system also lets you take advantage of true multi-material, not just multi-color. This means you can print a PETG box with a flexible TPU hinge, a wheel with a solid hub and flexible TPU treads, PLA supports and interface layers for PETG (and vice versa), or have a carbon-fiber infused filament used for the walls of a print with its virgin counterpart as infill to save costs but keep the thermal benefits of CF. While this is possible on a multiplexer system, it greatly lengthens print time and waste since the nozzle needs to heat up to different temperatures to properly load and flush out old filaments.

To combat the issue of different plastics not sticking to each other, Prusaslicer uses a feature derived from Orcaslicer (which in itself is a port from Ultimaker Cura. Oh, the beauty of Open Source!) called “Beam Interlocking”, which prints alternating lines of each material to create an interlocking cross-hatch pattern that securely locks the two materials together.

Another perk of the Prusa XL’s toolchanger system is that you don’t have to constantly change nozzles whenever you want to print at a different diameter or flow rate. Since each toolhead is capable of having an independently sized nozzle. Meaning that you can have a 0.6mm nozzle on one tool, a hardened 0.4mm on another, a 0.4mm high-flow nozzle on a third, and a 0.25mm nozzle all at the same time! You can even combine different nozzle diameters for different parts of the print, with 0.6 being used for infill, and 0.25 being used for rounded top layers. Though the most useful part of having multiple toolheads so far has definitely been no longer having to swap filaments all the time before printing, which is especially useful for remote print jobs, since you no longer have to manually swap from black PETG to blue PLA and can instead just pick whatever nozzle already has what you want loaded. Prusa has a great feature to go along with this called “spool-join” where the printer will automatically switch toolheads if you run out of filament mid-print, meaning that the Prusa XL can print up to 10 Kg of filament in a single go!

Furthermore, Prusa’s Nextruder design allows for easier nozzle changes and hotend swaps with an integrated nozzle heatbreak while still being compatible with older V6 nozzles from the MK3S. The Nextruder also features a built-in loadcell sensor that is used to perform automatic first-layer calibration and can also be used to detect filament jams and extruder skips. You can read more about the Nextruder here.

It’s not just the extruder system that sets the XL apart, though. The Prusa XL significantly improves print speed over our MK3S/+, with features like Input-shaping and Phase Stepping, along with its CoreXY kinematics. It can print at up to 350 mm/s with minimal print artifacts and vibration, and is significantly quieter than the MK3. The printer even comes preloaded with a 12-minute Bonkers Benchy (minus the heatup time, of course)! It also features many more quality of life improvements over the older printers, including a 3.5″ multicolor touchscreen and a unique segmented heatbed that splits one large bed into 16 smaller ones. This heatbed design allows the printer to minimize (the bed) warping from thermal expansion and only heat the active print area.

We also purchased the Prusa XL Enclosure, allowing the machine to print in an atmospherically stable environment with a built-in HEPA filter for use with plastics like ABS and other carbon fiber reinforced filaments.

Since we got the 5-tool version of the Prusa XL, it may seem like we have a fully maxed-out printer, but that actually is not the case. Prusa Research has mentioned future non-FDM (3D printing) toolheads for the Prusa XL, with Josef Prusa even posting a sneak peek video online. Meaning our Prusa XL may soon become more than just a 3D printer, with potential abilities including vinyl cutting, pen plotting, and pick-and-place capabilities.