Products

Make Something Colorful: Snapmaker's Latest Chapter

This week, we're unveiling the next era of Snapmaker: the U1, a high-speed, multicolor, multimaterial 3D printer, powered by an independent 4-head extruder swapping system: SnapSwap™.

Blayne Alan Sapelli

08 Jul 2025 — 3 min read

Snapmaker: Evolving Possibility

When Snapmaker was founded on Children’s Day 2016, it wasn’t just a coincidence—it was a statement. A tribute to curiosity, to playful invention, to the childlike spirit of discovery that drives all makers. From our very first Kickstarter in 2017, we set out to build something bold: a compact, beautifully engineered machine that could do more than one thing—and do them all well.

That idea became the world’s leading 3-in-1 3D printer. And over the years, it earned us a devoted community, thousands of creative projects, and a reputation for precision and versatility.

But the world of making moves fast. And so, we are always tinkering, always experimenting, and always looking to make newer, faster, better products.

Introducing a New Chapter

This week, we're unveiling the next era of Snapmaker: the U1, a high-speed, multicolor, multimaterial 3D printer, powered by an independent 4-head extruder swapping system: SnapSwap™. We believe this is the solution the 3D Printing community has been looking for: a machine that gets the job done faster, with less waste, and offers complex capabilities for our hardcore users, while centering open-source, user-friendly software to make sure everyone can enjoy the art of making.

This machine is revolutionary. It’s bold. It brings color to your ideas—and brings your projects to life in ways that go beyond the monochrome.

Introducing the Snapmaker U1: The Fastest Multi-Color and Multi-Material 3D Printing System. Powered by SnapSwap™, Snapmaker's independent extruder swapping system, the U1 can change filament in under 5 seconds, unlocking 5x faster printing speeds, cutting your total filament use down by up to 80%, and enabling incredible multi-color and multi-material prints.

Snapmaker to the Core

Snapmaker's core value proposition has always been our top quality hardware, and that remains true with the U1.

While our 3-in-1 machines are an important part of our company's story and our identity, we've delved into the world of single function machines before: the Ray, the J1s, the single function variants of the SN2.0 and Artisan, as well as several experimental projects that didn't end up making it to market.

Our latest machine honors this legacy, and tackles the problems of 3D Printing by focusing on Snapmaker's core competence: hardware. Specifically, we've taken the lessons we've learned from our modular and IDEX systems, and applied them to a Toolchanger design: a machine with 4-heads, always on standby, that minimizes waste and maximizes printing time.

Now, Snapmaker did not invent the Toolchanger concept, but what we've done with SnapSwap™ has solved many of the engineering and design challenges surrounding them. Toolchangers are complex, with lots of moving parts, and so traditionally it's been very difficult to build one that is Reliable, Precise, and Affordable.

We believe we have cracked the code.

Welcome to the Family

Snapmaker is putting a lot of focus on the new baby, as one might expect. Right now, the bulk of our software and engineering resources are aimed at the U1's success.

But we're still taking care of the rest of the crew.

Over the past year, we've released a series of updates to Luban with bug fixes and new features. We've also upgraded our 3D Printing capabilities with Snapmaker Orca, which will soon support direct connection to the Snapmaker Artisan, the J1/J1s, and the venerable Snapmaker 2.0.

Moreover, we're maintaining healthy stockpiles of spare parts and ensuring strong after-sales support across the entire lineup for the foreseeable future.

Looking ahead, our roadmap includes better software integration for legacy products, essential bug fixes, and ongoing support—all part of our promise to help every creator Make Something Wonderful.

No product lasts forever. But the communities we build, and the memories we've made together - those are everlasting.