Sovol M1D Hit US$1 Million in 13 Minutes. Here Is What People Are Actually Excited About

Over the past few months I have written a fair bit about toolchanger technology. I shared my Snapmaker U1 review after running that four-toolhead printer for a few weeks, I wrote about InfiMech’s US$249 pricing after seeing their machine in person at JRRF, and I put together an overview of why toolchangers suddenly became a trend.

So when Sovol launched the M1D on Kickstarter, it was enough to catch my attention and keep me following along.

Even so, I will be honest, I did not expect the campaign’s funding to reach this level.

The Numbers That Surprised Everyone

According to Sovol, the campaign managed to hit:

• US$1 million in 13 minutes
• US$2 million in a little over two hours
• More than US$3 million within 60 hours

The campaign’s original goal was only about US$191,000. That means they cleared it before most of us in Malaysia had even woken up to read about it. As I write this, the campaign has passed US$2.7 million in confirmed pledges from over 1,700 backers, with a few weeks still to go before it closes.

Last year, Snapmaker’s U1 raised US$7.8 million on its first day, and finished at more than US$20 million from over 20,000 backers. That is still the most funded 3D printer project on Kickstarter to date. Can the M1D break that record?

What Exactly Is Kickstarter?

Quite a few Domechy readers may not know what a Kickstarter campaign actually is.

In short, Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform. A company puts up an idea, sets a funding target, and asks the public to pay upfront so the company can raise the capital needed to turn that idea into a real product. The people who put money in are called backers, not customers. In return, a backer usually gets one of the first units at a discounted price.

If the campaign fails to hit its target before the deadline, nobody gets charged and the project does not go ahead. If it does hit the target, the backer’s card gets charged the moment the campaign closes, whether the printer is ready or not.

Here is the part a lot of people miss. Kickstarter states plainly on its own site that backing a project is not the same as buying something from a shop. Delivery dates are only estimates, and rewards are not guaranteed. If the company runs into trouble, getting back money that has already been charged is difficult.

To be fair to Sovol, the M1D looks far further along than most campaigns. Real pre-production units exist and have been shown working, and Sovol is not a new startup with a render and a rented booth. They have been selling Klipper-based printers like the SV06 and SV08 for years, and the brand already has a fairly large user base.

That said, it does not change the fact that backers still have to pay months before the machine exists, so weigh the risk properly before deciding if you want to be part of this campaign.

What Makes the M1D So Interesting?

The M1D is a fairly large FDM printer with a 300 x 300 x 350 mm build volume, and it has a feature that has never existed on a consumer printer before.

The M1D combines two systems that have always been separate:

1. IDEX, meaning two print carriages that move independently
2. An automatic tool changer, where the printer swaps its own print heads

Until now, buyers had to pick one or the other. IDEX printers like the Sovol SV04 have long offered two toolheads that can operate independently. Toolchangers like the Snapmaker U1 or Prusa INDX give you many toolheads, but only one carriage uses them at a time.

The M1D does both at once. One carriage has a fixed toolhead. The other carriage can automatically pick from six toolheads sitting in a rack on the machine. That brings the total to seven toolheads, and two of them can run at the same time.

Sovol claims the M1D is the first machine to combine both ideas in one printer.

It Is Not Just “Seven Colours”

Most multicolour printers today push every filament through a single nozzle. To change colour, the printer pulls one filament out, pushes a new one in, and flushes the old material out of that nozzle through a process called purging. As I mentioned, this system works and gets the job done. But every colour change wastes some filament, and on a complex model that waste adds up fast.

When I ran the U1 against a single-nozzle printer on the same model, the difference was obvious, the U1 was about three times faster than the single-nozzle machine. Keep in mind the U1 has 4 toolheads, while the M1D has 7.

Sovol claims almost no purge waste and a toolhead swap time of around five seconds. The parked toolheads stay heated while they wait, so the next one is already at the right temperature by the time the printer needs it.

I want to be careful with the wording here. “Almost no purge waste” is Sovol’s claim, not a figure measured by any independent party. There will usually still be some material lost to priming and nozzle cleaning depending on your model and slicer settings, but it should be far less than a single-nozzle machine. Whether it beats the U1 or the INDX is something we will need an actual review to settle.

The Multi-Material Angle Worth Highlighting

Seven independent toolheads on one machine means it can handle seven different materials, not just seven colours. That opens the door to a lot of things a single-nozzle printer cannot do well:

• A rigid material printed together with TPU
• PLA or PETG with a proper soluble support material
• Different nozzle diameters in the same job, a fat nozzle for infill, a fine nozzle for detail
• Conductive or specialist filament combined with normal plastic
• A dedicated support-interface material so supports peel off cleanly

As someone who does a lot of practical, mechanical design work day to day, this list is far more interesting to me than the ability to print a seven-colour dragon. Functional prototypes, jigs, or teaching kits. This may well be where the M1D’s real value sits.

Copy and Mirror Modes

This is the advantage that comes with the IDEX system, one a regular toolchanger does not have.

Because both carriages move at the same time, the M1D can run copy mode, where two toolheads print two identical parts at once. If you sell 3D printed goods in bulk for the same design, this is close to having a second printer for small batches.

Mirror mode does the same thing, but flips one part, so you get a left and right bracket in a single job.

There is one clear tradeoff though. Both modes split the build plate between the two toolheads, so you lose print area.

The Specs

The filament system also has runout, clog and tangle detection, which on a machine this complex is a requirement, not a nice to have.

One note on that 600 mm/s figure, it is what the motion system can achieve under ideal conditions, and it does not necessarily promise what you will see on a real print. Your actual speed still depends on the material, nozzle size, how fast the hotend melts plastic, and the shape of your model.

The Two Versions, and the Price

The Advanced version adds a full enclosure and active chamber heating up to 60 degrees Celsius. That is the version you need if you plan to print ABS, ASA, nylon or polycarbonate, since those materials warp easily in an open system.

The US$20 VIP reservation works like the InfiMech deposit I wrote about last week. You pay US$20 before the campaign starts, and you get US$100 off, an extra PEI plate, priority shipping and early access. Same logic, bigger number. Check the terms carefully if you are interested.

If you want to see the current terms and pricing, you can check the M1D campaign page on Kickstarter for the details straight from Sovol.

For comparison, the Snapmaker U1 sells here in Malaysia at RM3,999 for four toolheads, and it is a printer you can buy off the shelf today.

For the M1D, delivery is estimated to start in November 2026. But as I mentioned earlier, that is only an estimate.

What the Community Is Saying

The community reaction I have seen splits into two camps.

The excitement is naturally tied to the IDEX and toolchanger combination itself. Separate toolheads have already proven they can solve the waste problem that comes from purged filament. Pair that with two independent carriages, and you get a configuration nobody has seen before. It is no surprise that plenty of people have been waiting for this printer to become real.

The choice of Klipper and OrcaSlicer also earns Sovol goodwill. Their SV08 built a strong reputation among people who want a machine they can modify and repair themselves, without needing permission from a closed ecosystem.

That said, the concerns raised are just as loud.

The first is complexity, and it is the same concern I raised at the end of my U1 review. An IDEX motion system, a six-toolhead docking mechanism, cameras, automatic calibration and a six-channel feeder are a lot of places for something to go wrong. Four toolheads already made me nervous about long-term reliability. This is seven, on two moving carriages.

The second is the lack of independent reviews. Many people have noticed there were almost no independent reviews available while the campaign was open, which has raised concern among some backers.

The third is Sovol’s track record. Their hardware is generally well liked and easy to repair, but a recurring complaint from owners is that the community often ends up solving problems themselves, even when the company should have caught and fixed them before the product went on sale.

My Take

I like the specs of this machine on paper. Every other brand in the toolchanger race is competing on the same axis, how many toolheads, how fast the swap, how little waste. Sovol went a different direction. They asked what happens if the machine could use two toolheads at once, and the result is copy mode, mirror mode, and genuine multi-material printing, all from the same hardware. I respect the engineering approach on display here.

But as I keep saying, my worry with any printer carrying this much mechanical complexity is long-term reliability. On the Snapmaker U1, four toolheads sit on one carriage and share a single calibration reference. On the M1D, six swappable toolheads have to stay aligned with a fixed toolhead on a separate, independently moving carriage. That is a harder alignment problem than any toolchanger currently on sale. Sovol’s answer is camera-assisted calibration, and it may well work well. That is the thing I will be watching for once independent reviews start coming in.

Whether or not we choose to back this campaign, Sovol has proven something useful. Thousands of people spent real money in a matter of minutes, purely on the idea that IDEX plus a tool changer is where 3D printers are headed next.

Image credit: Sovol 3D.