The Penta-Printer Project is my longest-running project. Since purchasing my Ender 3 in 2019, I've spent over five years customizing and tweaking it, gradually transforming it into a highly modified machine. I cover the initial inspiration for this project on my 3D Printers & Printing page.

My ultimate goal for this machine is ambitious: to print three different colors, incorporate flexible filament for integrated hinges, and use water-soluble support filament for complex geometries. Initially I tried to achieve this with the stock hot-end, relying on a 5-way splitter. Experimenting with 3d-printed splitters of this size, I encountered multiple filament feeding issues during testing. 

Thankfully, I found an aftermarket hot-end with three inputs, which allowed me to simplify the splitters from five-to-one to two-to-one. With this setup, I now use two splitters for the four extruders mounted on the top rail and one direct drive extruder on the y-axis carriage, for flexible filaments. This configuration has brought me significantly closer to achieving the full capability of the printer.