4-color PLA 3d printer

[Cliff_Jennings]

I just saw this the other day, pretty neat. 4 filaments feed into the print head and can be applied per the model’s color boundaries (of some sort; don’t know their method).

Anycubic Kobra 3 Combo New Launch: Be Bold, Be Colorful

Not sure how many kinds of filament can be used (I’m guessing it’s limited for now), but it would be pretty neat to print in, say, “wood” and “iron” and “brass” (or reasonably close). Or, print a logo into the surrounding background, which would result in a pretty tough sign.

Their specs are meager at this time. But it’s neat to see a new approach, which will in a couple year’s time probably be well matured, and able to take multiple material types.

[Hines (Bill)]

I think using multicolour printing really comes down to how much plastic you can afford to waste and whether your different plastics can adhere to each other.

They’ve done quite a bit to stop wastage of plastic with these MMU units, though kick starter has a cool unit that cuts and welds the 4-5 plastics together as they come off the roll. But those units cost more than the printer that reportedly wastes no plastic.

Here’s how they work…

How does the Multi Material Upgrade 2.0 work?

This is how Prusa is addressing plastic wastage…

Update from Prusa! New MMU Features / PEI Beds / New Slicer

[Hines (Bill)]

I’m getting the impression that Co-print may be addressing the multiplastic issues, but am a bit skeptical unless they’ve figured a way to adjust the extruded head temperatures required by each plastic.

Co Print Multi-Filament Module

Skip to about the 8 minute 50 second mark if you’re wondering how amazing the colours can play out and how big the wipe towers can become.

Her 3D Yazıcı Renkli Basabilir! (Co Print Multi Filament Modülü)

[RGSNH (Al Pomeroy)]

there was an outfit at the NELSTS show called figure fusion, and they appear to use this technology.
as there prints are offered multi color. i will not be experiencing this as i did get scanned , but will print my Mini me’s on my own printer. compared to what Mini Prints offers, it is a one minute or so scan, and was only $25.00. i had looked into getting scanned by Bernard, but cannot stand still for as long as needed. they also offered sitting poses, which Mini prints doesn’t offer.

Al P.

[Cliff_Jennings]

Bill, Al, thanks very much for those insights!

I’m not keeping up very well, but even so, I’m excited that the 3D printing field is still very much moving and growing. Even two years from now, this multi-material tech will have changed everything, in my opinion.