What Is a Prime Tower in 3D Printing

Multicolour and multi-material 3D printing can produce striking results — but only with the right approach. Without proper handling, colour bleeding and poor transitions can easily ruin your print.

One key solution is the Prime Tower. But what exactly does it do, and when is it necessary?

Let’s take a closer look.

1. Preventing Colour Contamination When changing filaments, the previous material inside the hotend remains in a melted state. If a new filament begins printing without fully clearing out the old one, colours can mix — leading to smudged or inconsistent results.

A Prime Tower acts as a designated purge block, allowing the printer to expel the leftover material before switching colours. This ensures a clean transition, with vivid, accurate output on your actual model.

For printers lacking a dedicated purge station or sequence, a Prime Tower is essential to maintain print quality.

2. Enhancing Print Quality On printers with filament cutters, switching materials can cause rapid pressure changes within the hotend. This may result in filament leaking or under-extrusion if the machine resumes printing immediately on the model.

The Prime Tower serves as a buffer zone, allowing the printer to stabilise extrusion pressure during filament swaps. Any inconsistencies are absorbed by the tower — not your final print.

3. When You Can Skip the Prime Tower A Prime Tower isn’t always required. You can disable it when:

Printing a single-colour model Your design involves very few filament changes In these cases, using a Prime Tower adds unnecessary material waste and print time.

4. Setting Up a Prime Tower in CrealityPrint With CrealityPrint 6.1, enabling a Prime Tower is quick and easy.

Go to Process Parameters > Multifilament > Prime Tower .

When using two or more different filaments, the slicer can automatically generate a Prime Tower. (Note: For single-filament prints, this option remains disabled by default.)

Key Settings to Adjust: Width : Set the tower’s width according to your project’s requirements. Cleaning Volume : Define how much filament (in mm³) to purge during each swap. A higher value ensures more thorough colour transitions.

With the right Prime Tower settings, you’ll achieve smoother colour transitions, cleaner prints, and better results for even the most demanding multi-material projects .

What Is a Prime Tower in 3D Printing

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