Multicolor filament 3d printer

Multicolor VS Full Color 3D Printers

I want to start with a pretty important distinction when talking about 3D printers that can print in multiple colors. 

Sometimes “full color” is a term used to describe these printers.  

And while this is technically true, “full color” more often describes industrial-grade printers that are able to produce intricate color scaling and manipulation (I included one of these on the list – the XRize Rize – for comparison’s sake).

On the other hand…

… we’re going to be mostly looking at multicolor 3D printers, which can usually handle only a small number of different colors, but which tend to fall under the “personal 3D printer” umbrella. 

They’re smaller and much, much less expensive.

All that said, multicolor printing is still a very experimental field – much less established than its industrial counterparts. 

Given the scarcity of personal 3D printers that can handle multiple colors, I’m going to be looking at every option on the market today, including dual-extruder printers where each extruder can print a separate color and multi-color printer upgrades.

So let’s take a look at the best multicolor 3D printers!

Can 3D Printers Do Multiple Colors?

3D printers can do multiple colors! However, the method varies between printers. Single-extruder printers rely on a method of manually switching out spools of filament, while multi-color printers do this process for you.

What is a Multi-Color 3D Printer?

A multi-color 3D printer is a device that 3D prints different filaments using multiple extruders and nozzles.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Multi-Color 3D Printer

The obvious advantages of a multi-color 3D printer: you get awesome multi-colored prints without having to manually swap filaments. Also, such printers are compatible with water-soluble filaments for easy support removal. 

The disadvantages: twice the extruders, twice the maintenance. Hot end assemblies can run into any number of issues — and dealing with two of them can be a hassle. Also, it’s much more expensive than a single-extruder printer. 

How Do You Print Two Colors?

If you have a single-extruder printer, you can pause and swap. 

What does this mean? 

Well, whenever you want to change colors in a print, you just stop the print and swap the filament. This can be a major chore, however, and with multi-color printers the process is much easier. 

First, you load your two spools onto the spool holder, and then you feed the filament into the printer. Then you just let it do its multi-colored magic!

Can You Paint 3D Printed Objects?

Yes, you definitely can! 

Acrylic and enamel paints are best for 3D printed surfaces. However, you’ll have to sand your 3D printed part first. This gets rid of visible layer lines and helps the paint stick better to the surface. 

A Few Final Thoughts…

So there you have it – a fairly comprehensive guide to multi-color 3D printing, the best (affordable) multicolor 3D printers out there, one crazy-expensive one, and an alternative option altogether!

When it comes to choosing your best color 3D printer, there are plenty of factors to keep in mind.

When making your decision, you should always consider what specific projects you have in mind and tailor your choice to fit. After all, if you’re looking to upgrade towards multicolor 3D printing, you probably have a couple of exciting ideas in the bag already.

Some of these 3D printers excel at color combining.

For color control, the Da Vinci provides an entirely different system from anything else on the list (besides the XRize) but does so at a higher price point and with a few concerning bugs.

Some color 3D printers come packed with excellent side features, like the Lotmaax Shark V3.

And others have an ingenious design that comes with other exciting applications, like the dual-nozzle design of the TenLog.

Anyway, your preferences will determine your best color 3D printer, so I’ll hand over the baton to you to make your choice.

You’ll be churning out those colorful 3D prints before you know it.

Our pick

LOTMAXX Shark V3

Great 3D printer for beginners

This printer cranked out quality prints right out of the box in our test. Comes with excellent, all-metal nozzle and extruder and many more features makes this the best value.

Check Price from Amazon

So this was kind of an underdog story for me. When I first started looking for the best color 3D printer, the Lotmaxx wasn’t even on my radar.

Yet the more I learned about this 3D printer, the more I was impressed – both by its original design and by its execution. Not to mention that it’s a Kickstarter success and really demonstrates the best aspects of grassroots ingenuity coming out of the color 3D printing field.

Not only is the Lotmaxx an excellent base 3D printer capable of color 3D printing, but it also comes with some innovative features that I haven’t seen in a single other color 3D printer.

The laser engraving upgrade opens up new doors in creative design. The auto bed-leveling works pretty well, and the handheld removable touch-screen is something I haven’t seen in any other 3D printers, no matter what price point.

And to speak on the price… all of this costs less than $500.

Typically, when I review 3D printers by newly-launched companies or Kickstarter campaigns, I’m overwhelmed by a sea of mechanical, software, and assembly issues. I had none of these with the Lotmaxx.

In fact, the only persistent issue I had with this color 3D printer came from the build plate adhesion.

In some cases, my recent prints would require a lot of elbow grease and some light chiseling to remove the prints from the plate. This is one of the most straightforward issues to remedy, though, so it’s not even something worth criticizing.

So there you have it!

Whether you choose the Shark or some other color 3D printer on the list (XRize, anyone?), multicolor 3D printing opens up many new avenues for you and your creations.

In a field where companies and creators are innovating every day, I can’t wait to see what new color 3D printer awaits us! Until then, thanks for reading, and happy printing!

3D Print Your Own Multi-Color Filament

• by:
Donald Papp

Interested in experimenting with your own multi-color filament? [Turbo_SunShine] says to just print your own, and experiment away! Now, if you’re thinking that 3D printing some filament sounds inefficient at best (and a gimmick at worst) you’re not alone. But there’s at least one use case that it makes sense for, and maybe others as well.

There is such a thing as bi-color filament (like MatterHackers Quantum PLA) which can be thought of as filament that is split down the center into two different colors. Printing with such filament can result in some trippy visuals, like objects whose color depends in part on the angle from which they are viewed. Of course, for best results it makes sense to purchase a factory-made spool, but for light experimenting, it’s entirely possible to 3D print your own bi-color filament. Back when [Turbo_SunShine] first shared his results, this kind of stuff wasn’t available off the shelf like it is today, but the technique can still make sense in cases where buying a whole spool isn’t called for.

Here is how it works: the 3D model for filament is a spiral that is the right diameter for filament, printed as a solid object. The cross-section of this printed “filament” is a hexagon rather than a circle, which helps get consistent results. To make bi-color filament, one simply prints the first half of the object in one color, then performs a color change, and finishes the print with a second color. End result? A short coil of printed “filament”, in two colors, that is similar enough to the normal thing to be fed right back into the printer that created it. This gallery of photos from [_Icarus] showcases the kind of results that are possible.

What do you think? Is 3D printing filament mainly an exercise in inefficiency, or is it a clever leveraging of a printer’s capabilities? You be the judge, but it’s pretty clear that some interesting results can be had from the process. Take a few minutes to check out the video (embedded below) for some additional background.

Multi-color printing on a budget 3D printer | Filament welding | WORL3D | DIY

11/04/2021

I think every owner of a budget 3D printer sooner or later thinks about printing a multi-colored model. At least for the sake of fun and thirst for experiment. And I am no exception either.

In this short article, I will not talk about dual-extruder (2 printheads, where each prints with different plastic) printers, since by definition they hardly fall into the budget category. nine0005

And so, the first thing I decided to do was WELD individual scraps of multi-colored plastic into one piece and print with it!

Let's be honest, the idea is far from new and people just do not invent. I'll show you my way.

• We take a soldering iron
• cut off at a right angle 2 pieces of plastic of different colors
• bring it from both sides to the soldering iron for literally 1 second
• quickly connect, slightly pressing, but at the same time maintaining alignment
• we bite the resulting "patch" with side cutters
• we process it with sandpaper

The process in pictures 😉.

We fill the plastic in the printer and start printing. Here's what happened.

It is very important that at the junction of two plastics the diameter is no larger than the diameter of the bar, otherwise it will simply get stuck. That's what happened to me in my second experiment.

The magnet in the picture above was printed before the main upgrade of my Ender. That is, the Bowden tube (plastic supply tube) was still standard.

The second experiment took place after replacing the standard tube with a glamorous blue one from Capricorn, which ended up being slightly smaller in diameter than . Again I connected a bunch of segments into one, and it turned out like this multi-colored spaghetti.

Since this time I did not process the joints very well ( forgetting that the blue tube has a smaller diameter than the standard ), then at some point the plastic stuck stupidly in the tube and it was not possible to print the octopus.

But from the second experiment there was a video of the beginning of the printing process. nine0012

But I must say that I still printed the octopus, but using the printer's built-in capabilities.

Just select "Change Filament" from the menu at the right time and the printer prompts us to change the plastic, after which printing continues.

Everything went smoothly this time. True, this method does not allow the use of accumulated small pieces of plastic - only welding will help here.

Very cool model, but the colors are chosen "gouge out") Multicolor octopus

If the information seemed useful, then click 🤍, subscribe to the blog and, of course, write comments! 😉

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90,000 gradient plastic with AliExpress / 3D printer, Stocks and Accessories / IXESEES 3D printers have ceased to be super-expensive exotics that were only in secret laboratories or "lairs" of advanced technologists, now they are quite affordable and ordinary "household devices" (also thanks to AliExpress), which are increasingly found in the homes of advanced users. The most popular and inexpensive are FDM printers, for which a plastic rod is used as a consumable. Manufacturers of consumables, trying to diversify their range of products, offer different types of plastic for printing, all kinds of colors and even textures, such as carbon, marble or wood. Not so long ago, “silk” plastic appeared, I will talk about one of its options, gradient PLA plastic from SANLU, in this review. nine0005

What is gradient plastic? This is a printing rod, the color of which changes from one to another every few meters along its entire length. There are both two-color coils and multi-colored, all colors of the rainbow. Models printed with such plastic can turn out to be very interesting colors.

A little about the manufacturer: the SANLU brand is a fairly well-known company that specializes in the production of plastic for 3D printers and pens, which can be used to “draw” three-dimensional figures. This is not the first time I buy plastic from them, including “silk”, and it is always of excellent quality. Plastic came in a box:

On the reverse side you can see information on all manufactured plastics with their printing characteristics:

The reel with plastic, as expected, is packed in a sealed bag, which also contains bags of silica gel. It's a pity that the package does not have a reusable zip-fastener (although a simple "silk" one came in this one):

Specifications are pasted on the reel. The printing temperature range is indicated quite large from 200 to 230 degrees - there is room for experimentation:

On the “cut” of the coil, you can see that there are a lot of colors and, moreover, not only colors, but also shades change:

Weight:

The thickness of the bar is equal to the declared 1.75mm, I checked it several times during printing, there are no deviations:

Now about the features of the gradient plastic. If you think that any printed figurine will be multi-colored, then you are ... wrong :) Each changeable color of the rod has a length of about 15-20 meters, therefore, objects that require less than this length of plastic to print will be two-color at best, if , for example, the print fell on the end of the next section of the previous color, or they may even turn out to be one-color. nine0005

The length of plastic in meters used for printing can be seen in any slicer, for example, CURA. In the photo below, I unwound about 15 meters, the lilac color smoothly, over several meters, turns into green:

Thus, to get a completely multi-colored figure, the model must be large enough to take a lot of plastic (and a dozen or two hours print). On the other hand, even if the printed figure is small and turned out to be one-color, the one following it will definitely have a smooth transition and a different color :)

I printed on a printer with quiet motor drivers TMC2208 ANET ET4PRO (take the seller's coupon and use the promo code: I2S686DIBTNM ). You can read my detailed review of this printer here. The printer is still alive and well and prints perfectly without any modifications.

By the way, as a basis for printing, I began to glue 3M Blue Scotch on the table, and completely stopped having problems with models peeling off the table (at least for PLA and SBS plastics that I print with):

I took everyone's favorite Benchy boat as a model and increased its base size by 200%. The model turned out to be 120x62x96mm in size. The length of the plastic for printing is 22m. Printing time: just over 5 hours. I set the layer thickness to 0.3, the speed to 60.

Based on my modest experience, SILK plastic has slightly less good adhesion of layers than just colored plastic, therefore, in terms of temperature, I advise you to take the upper recommended temperature threshold of 220-230 ° C. I have models of vases, the walls of which are made in one pass, they turn out fragile from this plastic, I continue experiments ...

Run Benchy to print and go about our business:

Printing is “purple”, but towards the end, finally, we see a smooth transition to green:

Result:

You can see the shine of the plastic and how smooth the transition turned out between flowers. Also, I am glad that even at a temperature close to the upper recommended value, nothing floats and there are no “snot”:

Looking at the end of the coil, we see that after green, yellow will go:

Let's take a more interesting model - a dragon. The print parameters are the same, the estimated length of the plastic is 25 meters. Printing time about 7 hours:

Printing... Luckily, the green plastic was finished after printing the main part of the body, and then the neck, part of the wings and the head turned yellow, as if it was intended:

Close-up texture of the model:

Compared to the previous model:

Printed a small tree frog model. Print time 1 hour. The result is mono-color gold:

All three models of different colors from one coil:

If, suddenly, you think that the gradient plastic is too provocative, then you can purchase SILK plastic, for example, in the color copper:

In general, gradient PLA plastic is a very interesting thing. The models turn out to be unusual and different all the time, however, in order to reveal the full range of transitions, you need to stock up on time, because. a large model, and even with a layer thickness of 0.

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