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Full color sandstone 3d printer price
The 6 best full-color 3D printers in 2023
What is the best full-color 3D printer?
It’s complex to 3D print in full, photorealistic color, and there are less than ten 3D printer manufacturers that achieve this.
Until recently, full-color 3D printing was exclusive to expensive industrial additive manufacturing systems from brands such as Stratasys or 3D Systems. Today, more affordable (under $10K) desktop full-color 3D printers also exist.
What is full-color 3D printing?
Full-color 3D printers are able to create objects with photorealistic color.
To do so, the 3D printer must be able to mix different filaments or inks together to obtain precise shades and gradients, similar to regular 2D paper printers.
This is also known as indirect color 3D printing, as the color is applied to the base material (the base material isn’t pre-colored before 3D printing).
Full-color 3D printing vs. multicolor 3D printing
In the 3D printing industry, the term “multicolor” is sometimes used as a synonym for full-color.
However, for clarity in this article, we will only refer to multicolor for 3D printers and accessories that are able to 3D print a few colors (e.g.: 2-color 3D printers, 3-color 3D printers, Prusa multi-material add-on, Mosaic Palette, etc.).
This type of 3D printing is also called direct color 3D printing, as the filament already has a specific color before being 3D printed.
Examples of full-color 3D prints (left) and multicolor 3D prints (right).The best full-color 3D printers
| Brand | Product | Build size | Country | Price Approximate starting prices based on supplier-provided information and public data. Prices may vary by region, over time and do not include additional products or services (taxes, shipping, accessories, training, installation, …). | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ComeTrue | T10 | 200 × 160 × 150 mm7.87 × 6.3 × 5.91 in | Taiwan | $ 30,00030 495 €26,611 £4,471,680 ¥ | Quote |
| XYZprinting | PartPro350 xBC | 350 × 222 × 200 mm13.78 × 8.74 × 7.87 in | Taiwan | $ 30,00016 690 €26,611 £4,471,680 ¥ | Quote |
| Mimaki | 3DUJ-2207 | 203 × 203 × 76 mm7.99 × 7.99 × 2.99 in | Japan | $ 39,00035 000 €34,595 £5,813,184 ¥ | Quote |
| Stratasys | J55 Prime | – | United States | $ 99,00095 000 €87,817 £14,756,544 ¥ | Quote |
| Mimaki | 3DUJ-553 | 508 × 508 × 305 mm20 × 20 × 12.01 in | Japan | $ 230,000200 000 €204,019 £34,282,880 ¥ | Quote |
| 3D Systems This brand is a certified partner from our network. | ProJet CJP 660Pro | 254 × 381 × 203 mm10 × 15 × 7.99 in | United States | upon request | Quote |
Expand to see more specs
The products in the table are ranked by price (low to high).
| Brand | Product | Technology | Build size | Country | Price Approximate starting prices based on supplier-provided information and public data. Prices may vary by region, over time and do not include additional products or services (taxes, shipping, accessories, training, installation, …). | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ComeTrue | T10 | Binder Jetting | 200 × 160 × 150 mm7.87 × 6.3 × 5.91 in | Taiwan | $ 30,00030 495 €26,611 £4,471,680 ¥ | Get a quote |
| XYZprinting | PartPro350 xBC | Binder Jetting | 350 × 222 × 200 mm13.78 × 8.74 × 7.87 in | Taiwan | $ 30,00016 690 €26,611 £4,471,680 ¥ | Get a quote |
| Mimaki | 3DUJ-2207 | Material Jetting | 203 × 203 × 76 mm7.99 × 7.99 × 2.99 in | Japan | $ 39,00035 000 €34,595 £5,813,184 ¥ | Get a quote |
| Stratasys | J55 Prime | Material Jetting | – | United States | $ 99,00095 000 €87,817 £14,756,544 ¥ | Get a quote |
| Mimaki | 3DUJ-553 | Material Jetting | 508 × 508 × 305 mm20 × 20 × 12. 01 in | Japan | $ 230,000200 000 €204,019 £34,282,880 ¥ | Get a quote |
| 3D Systems This brand is a certified partner from our network. | ProJet CJP 660Pro | Binder Jetting | 254 × 381 × 203 mm10 × 15 × 7.99 in | United States | upon request | Get a quote |
Overview of the best full-color 3D printers in 2023
The ComeTrue T10 full-color 3D printer uses sandstone– a neutral, plaster-like powder– as its base material. This material is solidified and colored with ComeTrue’s proprietary liquid binding agent.
Then, users must insert the parts into a dry vacuum unit (available separately) to manually remove excess powder with an airbrush. The final steps involve covering the part in a liquid infiltrant for it to harden and then leaving the part to dry.
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Targeting professionals such as architects and designers, the PartPro350 xBC 3D prints, colors, and cures materials all at once.
This full-color 3D printer features a removable build tray, enabling users to quickly launch a new print job before taking out freshly 3D printed parts from the previous tray.
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The 3DUJ-2207 is an affordable full color 3D printer produced by Mimaki. Mimaki is a 3D printer manufacturer based in Japan. This 3D printer offers a build volume of 203 x 203 x 76 mm.
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The Stratasys J55 Prime is a full-color 3D printer for professionals. Stratasys is a worldwide 3D printer manufacturer based in the United States.
This color 3D printer can print over 1,900 PANTONE colors.
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Mimaki is a professional inkjet printing solution manufacturer from Japan. The 3DUJ-553 is their first 3D printer, and it produces high-quality, photo-realistic 3D prints.
To do so, its ink heads deposit a layer of colored ink, which the printheads then coat with UV-sensitive material to harden the layer with LED lighting.
According to the manufacturer, this full-color 3D printer offers over 10 million colors.
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This full-color sandstone 3D printer by 3D Systems produces high-quality parts. The ProJet CJP 660Pro deposits liquid color binding agent (proprietary VisiJet PXL) through its 1,520 jets in a process called ColorJet Printing.
Different infiltrants are available from 3D Systems for varying color 3D printed part properties: ColorBond, StrengthMax, and Wax.
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Other full-color 3D printers
Below are a few mentions of products that are unavailable, discontinued, or suspicious.
M3D Crane Quad
The Crane Quad is a $999 desktop 3D printer that is advertised by M3D as capable of printing full-color objects with its four-in-one-out extruder. However, it has been brought to our attention that some users have never received the machine, while many others have encountered serious issues with it.
A recap of user complaints and types of issues can be found in this BBB report. We don’t recommend this company.
Mcor ARKePro
Mcor debuted with the Mcor IRIS and Matrix 300+ and then launched the Mcor ARKePro full-color desktop 3D printers for professionals (an updated version of the original Mcor ARKe). The ARKe used Selective Deposition Lamination (SDL) technology, which consists of depositing colored ink on sheets of paper. Mcor is no longer active.
SOMETHING 3D Chameleon
This 3D printer was announced by Israel-based SOMETHING 3D (ST3D) in 2017. The Chameleon mixes five colors together (WCMYK) to create full-color 3D prints.
ORD Solutions RoVa4D full-color Blender
The RoVa4D full-color Blender is another filament-mixing 3D printer. Canadian company ORD Solutions launched this full-color desktop 3D printer on Kickstarter in 2016, but there has been very little news about its availability since then.
Apple full-color 3D printer
There were rumors of the tech giant developing a full-color desktop 3D printer. Apple filed a patent in 2015, which was approved at the beginning of 2018. However, the project appears to be on standby as no official Apple announcements regarding 3D printing have been made.
Ilios Ray
Ilios was a 3D printer manufacturer from Cyprus that closed its doors in late 2016. Their Ilios Ray resin 3D printer was claimed to mix colors with different resin cartridges.
SKY-TECH 3DPandoras
Launched on Kickstarter in 2014, this full-color powder 3D printer was well-received by the community– at first. Since then, its backers have largely denounced this product as a scam.
Multicolor 3D printing: alternatives to full-color 3D printing
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, multi-color 3D printing is different from full-color 3D printing.
Multi-filament 3D printers, such as dual extruder 3D printers, are able to 3D print different colors at the same time. These multi-nozzle 3D printers can be considered multi-color, but not full-color.
Accessories such as the Mosaic Palette or the Prusa multi-material add-on also allow for multicolor 3D printing with simple single-extruder 3D printers. They enable users to 3D print with up to four or five colors.
With SimplyColor3D software, it’s also possible to program filament color changes. The software also allows users to paint 3D models and allows for less material waste during purge transitions.
Another solution is post-processing. Germany-based DyeMansion provides full-color post-processing solutions (“DyeMansion RAL color palette”) for powder-based 3D printed parts. See our post on multicolor 3D printers and multi-filament accessories for more information.
A multicolor Benchy 3D printed with the Mosaic Palette 2.
Source: MosaicBenefits of full-color 3D printing and applications
Full-color 3D printers allow users to obtain photorealistic 3D models with limited post-processing required. This is useful for rapid prototyping as well as for the manufacturing of end-use products:
- Realistic prototypes (e.g. packaging, architecture models)
- Customized consumer products (e.g. phone cases, figurines, toys)
- Educational items (e.g. medical models)
Full-color 3D printing service
Full-color 3D printers are quite expensive and they require users to have at least some 3D printing knowledge.
If users only need to 3D print a few parts a year, then ordering online service bureaus can be more cost-effective. Here’s a list of a few trusted online full-color 3D printing services:
- 3D Hubs
- i.materialise
- Sculpteo
- Shapeways
- WhiteClouds
How much does a full-color 3D printer cost?
The price of a full-color 3D printer can range from $550 to over $250,000. It depends on the type of 3D printing technology that the 3D printer uses. Full-color extrusion 3D printers cost less, while complex binder jetting and material jetting are the most expensive.
Find the right full-color 3D printer for sale
Shapeways: Sandstone
Binder Jetting
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Material info
About Sandstone
Full Color Sandstone offers multi-color printing, making it the best material for figurines, architecture, medical models and other applications that require many colors.
Although it’s a great material for decorative models, it is not well suited for handling due to its low strength and brittle nature.
Color & Finishes
Plain
Full Color
Technology
- Binder Jetting
Description
Material Highlights
multi-color, great value, great for architecture models
Design Guidelines
Bounding Box
Bounding Box Max
250 × 380 × 200 mm
Bounding Box Min
X + Y + Z > 10 mm
The bounding box is a 3D imaginary outline of a box that encloses the smallest area occupied by your model. Your model must be within the minimum and maximum bounding box sizes. If the size of the model is close to the maximum bounding box, then the printing orientation will be restricted.
Supported Wall Thickness Min
2.
0 mm
Unsupported Wall Thickness Min
3.0 mm
A supported wall is connected at least on two sides of the wall, while an unsupported wall is connected only on one side of the wall. Walls that do not meet the minimum requirements may not survive printing and cleaning processes. Additionally, models may still be rejected based on the wall geometry of the model. Please consider the size of your model and reinforce the walls or add support structures as needed as minimum guidelines will not always be adequate for large models.
Supported Wires Min
2.0 mm
Unsupported Wires Min
3.0 mm
A wire is a circular, rectangular or even triangular feature that is thinner in its unconnected directions than its length. A supported wire is connected at least on two sides of the model, while an unsupported wire is connected on one side of the model.
Wires that do not meet the minimum requirements may not survive printing and cleaning processes. Additionally, models may still be rejected based on the wire geometry of the model. Please consider the size of your model and reinforce the wires or add support structures as needed as minimum guidelines will not always be adequate for large models.
Details
Details Min Embossed
0.4 mm high & wide
Details Min Engraved
0.4 mm high & wide
For text, the ratio between width and depth, should be 1:1 and sans-serif fonts are preferred for line weight consistency.
Escape Holes
Single Escape Hole Diameter (Min)
25 mm
Multiple Escape Hole Diameter (Min)
15 mm or 10 mm when there are four or more escape holes
Escape holes are necessary to empty the support material of a hollow model.
Two escape holes at the opposite ends of the model is optimal for the support removal process. Please consider the size of your model and make the escape holes bigger or add more escape holes as needed as minimum guidelines will not always be adequate for large models.
A single escape hole at the end of a cavity will not allow material in the corners near the escape hole to fully escape. So we recommend multiple escape holes at both ends of the cavity.
Clearance
Min
0.9 mm
Clearance is the space between two individual parts in a model. If the space among the individual parts do not meet the minimum clearance, then parts can fuse together or can be difficult to clean. This is important for movable pieces like hinges, gears, etc.
Interlocking & Enclosed Parts
Interlocking
Yes
Enclosed
Yes
Accuracy
Accuracy ±0.
5 mm
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How to get rich color in full color 3D printing
Technician
A small educational program dedicated to full-color printing. I hope it will be useful for newbies.
Introduction
Full Color Sandstone (FCS) is our only material that makes full color 3D printing possible. This material is a great choice for creating human figurines, miniatures, memes, and other fun and realistic color models.
Full-color 3D printing
Full-color printers work according to the following scheme: they apply thin layers of powder and, using an adhesive component mixed with paint, bind this powder together, repeating the section of the future model to grow the whole product.
Design for improved color.
Just like the "2D" color printing process, the colors on your printout may differ from what you see on your screen.
Each pixel on the screen consists of RGB red, green, and blue, and full color sandstone printing uses cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK printing palette). When modeling for this material, there are several tricks that will help you improve color reproduction significantly:
- CMYK is better at rendering light, bright, contrasting colors. To get a good result, avoid blurry borders, gradient transitions and shadows. The complex colors you see in photographs of photorealistic models are actually quite difficult to reproduce.
- Some colors are simply difficult to print, such as brown tones, they are difficult to reproduce because these colors require mixing all 4 inks (CMYK). And as a result, we can get an unpredictable result (a large amount of paint and a porous powder surface with uneven absorption).
When painting - consider the wall thickness
When you prepare a color 3D model for printing, you set only the surface color - the texture determines the color outside, not inside the object.
Actually, this is correct, since printers can only paint the outer layer of the model. After the print is finished, we dip each model in Cyanoacrylate. This coating increases the strength of the model, and gives the color brightness and depth. If your model has a significantly varying wall thickness, then different sections of the model will absorb different volumes of this coating. As a result, you will see slight color changes, this effect is especially pronounced in massive models.
If you make the model hollow and maintain a wall thickness of approximately 3 mm, then the color will be more uniform, and the cost of 3D printing, by the way, will be greatly reduced.
If your model requires variable wall thicknesses, it is best to have a smooth transition between thicknesses to avoid sudden changes in color saturation.
Technical approval versus actual approval.
Another issue to keep in mind is that we are working with a powder that absorbs ink.
Even though the inkjet printhead resolution is 300DPI, the effective texture map resolution is probably closer to 50DPI. Keep this in mind when designing small details, especially on small models.
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3D printing online (remote printing on a 3D printer) with delivery in Russia
find at least one 3D printer. Not to mention access to it. For those who need a natural embodiment of their 3D models, we present an online 3D printing service. On which you can upload your virtual model and receive the finished product as a parcel.
Probably, many of us, since the advent of printers, timidly began to dream that one day it would be possible to print any thing on it. Such dreams, of course, seemed unrealizable and to some extent childish, but time passed, technologies did not stand still, and now, an online 3D printing service is presented to our attention.
What is the point? What is 3D printing? Our review will be devoted to this.
With the development of technology, in particular with the advent of printers, the capabilities of which include three-dimensional printing, a new opportunity has appeared in the service market. You upload a model of what you want to receive to the service website (of course, the model must be in a three-dimensional version), and you will receive a real thing printed on this model by mail. And after all quite recently it was only timid dreams? And now, with the help of this unique and advanced technology, it has become a reality.
Let's talk a little about the materials used for printing. There are three of them in our arsenal: full-color sandstone (color 3D printing), polyamide - one-color 3D printing and photopolymer - 3D printing with a translucent material. All of them, after creating the model, give a high-quality surface.
- Choose full color sandstone and get the perfect color.
- Polyamide and you have a strong model that does not need frames and supports.
- More recently, another unique material has become available for 3D printers - photopolymer , incredibly durable, plus you can create transparent models from it, unsurpassed smoothness and precision in execution of even the smallest details.
While with a fairly common "home 3D printer" that works with the only possible material for it (ABS plastic), you are unlikely to get the perfect form and content.
Who would be most interested in this kind of printing?
First of all, of course, these are designers . Just imagine, you have created some kind of interior item, special, unique, exclusive in the form of a 3D model, sent it online and within a few days you have in your hands something that was only in your imagination not so long ago. Moreover, the materials presented with a bang will cope with any task.
The relevance of 3D printing for other specialties is also beyond doubt. Aviation, science, medicine and advertising and this is not a complete list of those industries that will be interested in new opportunities and prospects for the development of this new direction. It would seem that such a serious industry, but after all, 3D printing is a serious matter. For example, it is possible to create individual parts of radio equipment , for aviation (due to the precise detailing and strength of the products being created), for science it is also important to reproduce the smallest details of the latest developments, for medicine, thanks to the latest photopolymer, the appearance of mechanical prostheses is possible. And this is not to mention the fact that in the short time that 3D printing has been on the Russian market, a huge amount of jewelry, interior details, and decor has already been made. Such printing became famous in advertisements of world famous brands.
