New Prusa XL silicone 3D printing toolhead makes soft-material printing more affordable and simple

At its recent Prusa Day event, the Czech 3D printer manufacturer announced a first-of-its-kind plug-and-play silicone printing toolhead for the Original Prusa XL printer, in partnership with Filament2. While printing with liquid materials like silicone typically requires dedicated hardware with complex pressure systems, Filament2's patented "liquid filament" technology brings this capability to traditional FDM printers without compromising on precision.

Essentially, the liquid filament is a long hollow tube containing the paste or liquid to be used, rolled onto a standard spool. In this case, there are two spools, since silicone requires two compounds to be mixed to create a curable material. A specialised cutter in the toolhead strips away the outer covering, leaving only the two-part silicone compounds to be mixed and extruded onto the build. The curing time is around eight minutes. Filament2's CEO Eran Galor said they've even tested the technology with liquid chocolate, although their next focus is on polyurethane and epoxy based filaments.

Prusa claims the precision is the same as with standard FDM printing, and the resulting build has all the expected properties like stretchiness and heat resistance, making it extremely useful for things like medical implants and prosthetics, seals and gaskets, flexible hinges, wristbands and casting molds. Different grades of silicone offer varying levels of firmness, so they can even be combined in the same build. On the software side too, there are no additional steps—the Prusa Slicer software can be used to slice and build as with any other model.

The multi-material capable Original Prusa XL (available on Amazon) holds up to five toolheads and has received praise for its high print quality and and minimal filament waste, so it's the perfect platform to launch this technology. In the days to come, we'd love to see this feature from other brands like Bambu Lab, whose A1 Combo printer offers multi-material printing but is far cheaper and more beginner-friendly. The liquid filament tech is patented, however, so it remains to be seen whether other brands will also partner with Filament2 or attempt their own spin on it.

The Prusa XL silicone printing toolhead is priced at $999 which is far from affordable, until you consider Prusa's claim that the alternate technology currently available for printing silicone costs at least twenty times more. Both the printhead and filament (price not disclosed yet) will be available sometime in 2026.