Is it normal for the first print to come out this clean?

One more thing on the waiting-for-the-catch feeling. The failure mode that does eventually show up on any multi-color machine is a clog from filament that sat too long in a hot nozzle, so don't leave a color loaded and idle for hours with the hotend heated. Otherwise, print your own stuff tonight. That's what it's for.

On the waste question, what helped me most was picking better colors. I used a dark PLA for a big batch of parts and the purge blobs were way smaller than when I ran white after black, since going light over dark eats a ton of filament just to flush the nozzle clean. So if you get to choose, sequence your colors dark to light in the slicer and the blobs shrink on their own. I also stopped feeling bad about the little piles, tossed them in a box, and now my kid builds stuff out of them.

I'm in a wierd spot where my only background is a tiny entry level machine I used mostly for cosplay props, so I never trusted it enough to walk away mid print. First day with this thing I went and did yard work while it ran and came back to a finished part, wich honestly felt wrong. Still keep wandering over to check on it out of habit though. Does anyone else have that problem where you don't trust the machine even when it keeps proving itself? Also wondering what people do with the partial spools left over after a multicolor job, since the swaps use up so little of each color.

Update: took the advice and just sent my own model last night, dark gray over black like someone suggested, and the purge pile was noticeably smaller than the dragon run. Also kept the nozzle heat off between jobs since I'm still paranoid about leaving filament cooking in there. Went to the store mid print and it was just done when I got back. Still feels illegal somehow.