Printed Solid, the Delaware-based filament manufacturer acquired by Czech Prusa Research in 2022, is now known as Prusa USA, Inc. I chatted with Prusa Research team members at Open Sauce, who confirmed the name change was largely window dressing, with nothing changing in the company’s day-to-day operation. Josef Prusa will remain CEO of both companies, with a new Marketing Officer moving up the ranks internally.

During the changeover, Printed Solid will be known as “Printed Solid, a Prusa Company”. The website now proudly states that Prusa Research is a “European-American” company with U.S. production capabilities. The company has a duplicate print farm at its 100,000-square-foot Delaware factory for the production of 3D printers and filament. The printers are not yet fully “Made in the USA,” as some parts are still needed from the factory in Prague. This helps overcome supply chain issues for American customers.

Josef Prusa states, “We wanted to be closer to our customers. Expanding to America was the natural next step to support the most important market in the world.” His booth at Open Sauce proclaimed Prusa to be the biggest 3D printer manufacturer in the USA. Though Prusa Research ships well over 10,000 printers a month from both Prague and Wilmington, it’s a fraction of what its Chinese competitors produce overseas. 3D printing is simply getting bigger as more businesses and individual makers discover the ease of additive manufacturing.

The change comes at a difficult time for 3D printing enthusiasts, as several anti-3D printing bills are sprouting up around the country. These bills are trying to impose government oversight by installing spyware on new 3D printers to prevent the machines from manufacturing firearms. This is the antithesis of Prusa Research, which stands firmly on the side of Open Source, the right to repair, and proudly produces 3D printers that meet the high security needs of the US military and government agencies. Delaware, Prusa Research’s new home away from home, has just introduced House Bill 399, which would place so-called “blocking technology” on all 3D printers.

The Wilmington, Delaware facility manufactures Original Prusa MK4S and the Prusa CORE One+ 3D printers, plus Prusament and the Jessie line of PLA and PETG (named after Randolph’s dog). When we toured the facility in 2025, only three filament lines were established, with a massive space left clear for future expansion.

It is also the American fulfillment center for Prusa Research’s Amazon sales and the official US Service Center for printer support, which includes repair and maintenance.

The corporate restructuring follows some major leadership changes at Printed Solid. David Randolph, the former CEO of Printed Solid, stepped down in February, and Chris Pelesky, the company’s Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, stepped down earlier this month. Both veterans are still deeply involved in 3D printing, with Randolph taking the reins at Cocoa Press and Pelesky still leading 3D Printopia, one of the biggest consumer-focused 3D printing expos set to take place this fall in Philadelphia.

One thousand Prusa CORE One INDX Founder’s Editions have shipped, giving a lucky few first access to Bondtech’s revolutionary toolchanger mod. The Founders Edition is a special limited run, intended for early adopters and Prusa fanatics.

The INDX toolchanger promises multi-material printing without the headache of prime towers and massive purge waste. Since toolchangers have a dedicated nozzle for each filament path, they don’t need to clean out the nozzle between color or material swaps; however, they do need to “prime” the nozzle to make sure the filament is flowing at the right pressure. Before the INDX, this meant printing a smallish, unavoidable prime tower. The INDX has been precisely tuned to purge only tiny crumbs of waste into an internal tray, then wipe the nozzle on a silicone pad.

The INDX, invented and patented by Bondtech, uses an induction heater to rapidly bring each nozzle to temperature in a few seconds. This allows the Prusa Core One with INDX to have some of the fastest color swap times we’ve seen.

Tom’s Hardware was sent an eight-tool kit so we could share our first-hand experience with the INDX. It took the better part of a weekend to strip down our existing CORE One and modify it. This involved completely removing the Nextruder, replacing it with the INDX carriage, then mounting a rack to hold the eight tool heads. Eight spool holders were mounted on the sides, using preexisting screw holes. A calibration sensor was mounted to the front corner of the build platform, and an internal waste catcher was installed.

Prusa requested that we not conduct a full review of the Founder’s Edition, as it is merely a taste of what’s to come. The final retail INDX will be a more refined version, with a few tweaks (like better visibility through the front grill) and firmware upgrades. Prusa Research is taking feedback from Founders to improve the retail launch.

Prusa Research is expected to launch the retail version of the INDX for Prusa CORE One + by the end of July. A 4 tool kit will cost $749, while an 8 tool kit will run $999. Bondtech is offering a Development Kit that can be installed on Vorons, Sovols, or whatever you can hack, with a starting price of $487.50 for one toolhead.

So why is the Founders Edition considered unfinished? Bondtech’s original INDX concept was designed as a generic add-on to any compatible 3D printer, not as a bespoke Prusa mod. We first saw a Bondtech demo of the INDX at Rapid/TCT in April of 2025, mounted on a Voron 0. The partnership with Prusa Research was announced seven months later at Formnext, with a functional CORE One sporting eight tool heads.

The CORE One was not built with the INDX in mind, and it’s a testament to Prusa’s ingenuity and Open Source moddability that such a collaboration can work at scale. Prusa Research has always maintained a close connection with its user base and encourages owners to creatively tinker and customize the machines they own.

Unlike previous purpose-built toolchangers we’ve reviewed, the INDX is an upgrade kit. This is not a beginner-friendly piece of hardware to install, and Prusa Research is looking into issues that Founders are having with assembly to improve the retail experience. They may need to offer a fully assembled “Prusa INDX” to properly compete in this era of dumbed-down “just push play” 3D printers.

Though our “definitely-not-a-review-unit” had a few hiccups, most issues were solved by a firmware update and a second run through the calibration program. We’ve not had any issues with print quality, and our first calibration print turned out flawless.

Meet Otto, the Eight Color Calibration Butterfly

Prusa published a new calibration print just for the INDX. This eight-color sample test print took 1 hour and 14 minutes. The wings are a first-layer test and are only two layers thick. A tab on the wing slots into the body to prove that tolerances and extrusion flow are correct. The multi-colored wing segments act as a visual test for first-layer quality, belt tension, and toolhead alignment, as any tiny offset in color boundaries or axis motion will show up instantly.

Our Otto printed perfectly on the first try.

The Flashforge Creator 5 is the best budget tool changer currently on the market. Of course, there are only two other true toolchangers out there right now, three if you include the Bambu Lab H2C nozzle swapper. At the time of this review, the Creator 5 is on sale for $699, after a $100 discount. For that, you get a solid, open-frame Core XY machine with a 256 mm cubed build volume and four speedy toolheads that won’t waste your filament budget.

The Creator 5 is not perfect. It purges an insane amount of material when it loads, and the required prime block is surprisingly large. If you don’t use the Flashforge filament profiles, you’ll be in for a shock at the heft of the prime tower. Why? They only adjusted the filament profile for their own material. Everything purges at single-nozzle AMS levels. This setting is buried pretty deep in the slicer, and it took some time for me to find and correct it.

The printer handle high temperature materials well, which is more relevant if you opt for the enclosed Creator 5 Pro. It's still useful on the open frame machine because it loads and unloads at a higher temp to avoid clogging.

Being an open-frame printer, the Flashforge Creator 5 is limited in the materials it can print. We used the basics, PLA, PETG, and TPU for most of our prints. Since the hot end temperature can go all the way to 320°C and bed can get to 120°C we did try some higher temp filaments like PET-GF which printed fine at 310°C.

There’s no upgrade path to take the Creator 5 to an enclosed Pro, something that other companies might offer. Even though it looks like Flashforge uses the same case for both machines, there’s no fan behind the exterior grill for extra cooling, and no way to install one. However, if your plan is to print in multicolor PLA, PETG, and TPU, this is a good, no-frills machine for your workshop. It's one of the best 3D printers we’ve seen this year, and I highly recommend checking it out for your next multicolor machine.

Specifications: Flashforge Creator 5

Flashforge Creator 5: Included in the box

The Flashforge Creator 5 arrives mostly assembled. The tool heads are pre-assembled with a mounting plate. The spoolholders, touch screen, toolkit, filament coils, and quick start guide are included.

Design of the Flashforge Creator 5

The Flashforge Creator 5 is a fast Core XY open-frame printer with a simple grey case that prioritizes mechanical simplicity to keep the price down. We mainly see this in how filament is manually loaded to each tool head and requires picking up each head to physically hold down a lever while you push the material through to the nozzle.

The build volume is 256 mm³, which is a fairly standard size when compared to most 3D printers. The removable flex plate is two-sided and coated with a common PEI textured surface, which gave us no problem.

As I mentioned previously, the open frame case is not meant to be upgraded with a door or top lid. It appears to be the same one used on the Pro version of this machine, which is a great cost-saving method for Flashforge, but disappointing to the buyer when you notice there are no fans behind the vents in the body.

The X and Y axes run on beefy 8mm belts with a linear rail for the X axis and linear rods for the Y. The Z runs on three linear rods, driven by three lead screws belted to a single stepper motor.

The tool head carriage includes the extruder motor and parts cooling fan, which are shared by four very lightweight tool heads. Each tool head has a manual cutter, hot end, and cooling fan. The tool heads attach to their base with magnets and are picked up by the tool carriage mechanically by gripping the circular protrusion on the back of the tool head, and aligned by mating with three pins on the tool head carriage. This is less complex than motorized latching pins that other machines use, but during our testing, it proved to be a very reliable system.

The hot end includes the thermistor and heater, and is replaced as a unit. This is not a quick-release system, and you will need tools and a bit of patience to change out the nozzles.

The Flashforge Creator 5 has basic, static, spool holders which allow for the use of a wide variety of spool types from sample spools and coils to oversized spools and spools with dinged up rims. Since the Creator 5 does not automatically unload filament, these work just fine.

Assembling the Flashforge Creator 5

For a complex machine, the Flashforge Creator 5 is very simple to assemble. The 4-inch touchscreen plugs into a socket on the printer, with no ribbon cable to fuss with, and attaches with two screws.

The tool heads are prewired and attached to a plate, which is screwed into the right side of the printer, and the tool heads dock magnetically, also on the right side of the printer.

The spool holders are attached to the right side of the printer with a single screw each. Four nozzle blockers slot into the right side of the printer to prevent oozing. There is one cable to plug into the toolhead carriage, and it attaches with two screws.

Before calibration, there is a nice reminder to make sure you’ve removed the three screws holding the bad in place for shipping.

Preparing Files / Software for Flashforge Creator 5

The Flashforge Creator 5 requires a download of Flash Studio, which is based on Orca Slicer, which traces its lineage to Bambu Studio and Prusa Slicer. Flash Studio is stable and works fine for connecting to the Creator 5 in either cloud or LAN mode. The filaments input from the printer itself show up on the device page, but have to be manually chosen in the slicer as they do not sync up automatically.

Flashforge does not give access to the printer directly from a browser using the IP address, but does offer LAN mode if you want to avoid the cloud. Files can also be transferred manually via a USB drive.

You can access Voxelshare, Flashforge’s file sharing site from the home page of the slicer. While not as deep as some of the other file sharing services out there, it is a good place to start looking for something to print.

Flashforge does have a nice series of guides that can be accessed directly from the slicer. Information is a little light on the Creator 5 largely because it is still in pre-order status.

Leveling the Flashforge Creator 5

The Flashforge Creator 5 sets Z offset and levels the bed as part of its initial calibration, along with vibration compensation and extruder offset calibration. It calibrates the four tool heads by tapping a calibration disk hidden underneath the build plate. This takes about 40 minutes, but only needs to be done when the machine is first set up.

The printer offers to recheck the level at the start of each print. Since the printer sets the level using the tool head carriage, without the need to level each individual tool, it’s quick enough to just let it level each time.

Loading Filament on the Flashforge Creator 5

Loading filament in the Flashforge Creator 5 is a very simple, though oddly manual, process. Each tool head has a manual cutter, triggered by a lever, which also releases the extruder. To load filament, place the spool on the holder, push the end of the material into the appropriately numbered port, and hand-feed the material to the tool head. You then remove the toolhead from its dock, press the lever to release the extruder tension, and feed the material until it stops. To unload, you reverse the process.

The loading routine on the printer nicely sets the hot end temperature to match the last filament loaded, 250 °C for PLA and TPU, and 270 °C for PETG. It will then purge a rather large amount of material onto the floor of the printer.

Printing on the Flashforge Creator 5

The Flashforge Creator 5 comes with four small sample coils of basic colored PLA, which are too small to be of any real use. You should check out our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing to stock up on filament before using the Creator 5.

For my first print, I decided to jump into the deep end of the pool. I used Creality’s Cube Me tool to make a model from a photo of Dave Hasselhoff from his Knight Rider days. I used the .12 mm layer height default profile, which set an average print speed of 160 mm/s. I tilted the model 90 degrees backward to avoid supports on Hoff’s face and stuck with the default values for tree supports. The supports were very stout, but were removed with very little trouble.

The print took 8 hours 28 minutes to complete and looks fantastic. The purge block generated by the defaults was massive on this model, weighing in at 44 grams, more than the model’s 33 grams. This purge value can be adjusted in the slicer and should be refined in future software releases as well.

I used Anycubic PLA Plus in peach pink, cyan, and black. The white is Microcenter’s Inland PLA.

I wanted to test the ability of the Creator 5 to push TPU, so I loaded up some FiberFlex 40D from Fiberology. 40D is a little bit softer than standard 95A TPU, and many of the printers I test have a hard time handling it. To make it more interesting, I gave it a difficult model, the TPU air duster from Dan the 3D Printing Dad on Printables. This file will fail at the first hint of underextrusion. Using a .12mm layer height and an average print speed of 50 mm/s, the print completed in 2 hours and 9 minutes.

The duster printed great, with no leaks in the bellows, but did fail ¾ of the way up the straw. That soft TPU was way too wiggly at the top, where the model was very small.

Sadly, the extruder clogged, which required disassembling the tool head to clear.

I wanted to give the machine another shot, so I loaded up some CookieCad Sunset TPU, which has a shore hardness of 95A. This time, I was prototyping a phone bag I made in Tinkercad.

This printed at a .2mm layer height, with an average speed of 50 mm/s. The print took a little over 10 hours to print. The quality is very nice with just a little bit of stringing on the interior of the bag, which just means I should have dried the TPU before printing with it.

For PETG, I printed a Fidget Grabber I found while browsing MakerWorld. Using a .2mm layer height and an average print speed of 120 mm/s, the print completed in 2 hours 57 minutes. The print looks really good in Polymaker Silver PETG, and all of the print-in-place joints came out super clean. It’s not the most functional print, but it’s certainly fun.

Bottom Line

The Flashforge Creator 5 printed everything we threw at it (except softer than soft TPU) and did an excellent job. It will be even better if Flashforge can tone down the purge waste when loading and on the prime block. The slicer could be a little less clunky and sync filaments directly, but again, this is a small issue.

$699 isn’t exactly the cheapest price for a 3D printer, but it is currently the best deal you’ll get on a tool changer. If you want to print in four colors, but hate wasting your filament, the Creator 5 is worth a look.

Right now, our options for tool changers are limited. The Snapmaker U1 has a bit more polish and can be upgraded to be fully enclosed by slapping an IKEA tub on top of it. It is currently $899. The prosumer Prusa Research XL, which has a larger print volume and five heads, is $3,899.