I usually have my ender 3 pro printing stuff I don’t need all day but today I have yet to print anything. I was chuffed yesterday because Cura allowed me to print in multicours with one nozzle. I had been trying to do this in Prusa (my preferred slicer) but I can’t seem to update my flashed 1.1.8 version of Marlin. So now I have to dream up something to print nulticolour personalized etc for the unfortunate people I push all my plastic garbage onto. I followed this video and it worked. Multi-Color 3D Print in CURA 3 on Creality Ender 3 - YouTube So now I’m thinking about cool things to print. Any suggestions?
It really seems like you want one of these: [U]https://www.mosaicmfg.com/products/palette-2s[/U]. And the best part is they’re only a ‘little’ trip up the 401 from you 
ps. I may be wrong, but I think I recall reading that one huge advantage to the Palette is that you don’t have to waste filament when changing colors.
Woah, I want! And, cheaper than a Prusa! (Now, if i can only get the wife to understand). Thanks for the link.
Cheers
You might want to view a video they did of 16 Palettes feeding 4 Palettes feeding 1 Palette (21 total). IOW, 64 spools of different colored filament being spliced into 16 filaments then the 16 spliced into 4 filaments which feed the final Palette, which feeds the printer a single filament. It didn’t work entirely, but it was neat to watch. [U]3D Printing 64 Colors Using 21 Palettes! - YouTube
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The company is located in Toronto, Canada.
Here’s another approach to multi-color printing I had no idea even exists: [U]https://reprap.org/wiki/Diamond_Hotend[/U].
The diamond hotend seems interesting but I wonder why we haven’t heard more about it. The videos I see are three years old. They certainly waste less filament than the other systems I’ve seen, but do they work?
I don’t find the palette very interesting. You can buy rolls of filament that have multicolours and do the same thing.
I’m not sure, but I suspect some of it may have to do with the amount of work ordering parts and assembling everything required. Also, how is the color mix controlled. Obviously there have to be 3 extruders. Where do you get a controller board that can handle that. What about firmware? All in all, a Palette device may be the best option.
Actually, they don’t. You see, the Palette doesn’t just randomly, or just regularly, splice colors together. It has software that allows you to specify exacly which parts of a print will be what color. For example, you could print a clown, with orange hair, holding up a green sign, that has yellow and black lettering on it.
Have a look at this: https://www.mosaicmfg.com/blogs/stories/mirai3d
I will have to see what they are doing now; I did see a few videos including the one when 3d printing nerd filmed them with all those machines running.
The purge block takes more filament than the print.
Hmmm, I thought they had largely addressed that issue. But, won’t you have the same issue doing it manually? Isn’t purging just a fact of life, unless you have a multi-hotend printer?
Any time you change filament you must purge or you will get color mix. Even if it is a new print. I think some genius should make the purge block into something useful instead of just a block. The loss depends on how often you change colours, some of these purge blocks on colourful prints are huge.
Agreed. One thing I’ve been thinking is I might want to start making my own filament, using a FilaStruder, FilaWinder combo. I’ve been thinking there are a lot a soda/water/name-your-drink bottles out there. Between our own, friends, neighbors, etc. I’m thinking I could get a lot of plastic to use for filament. Purge blocks could be part of that mix.
Interesting. Please keep us posted.
This will be a very interesting project to follow.
Absolutely. Real colour printing.
The issues wit having a purge block was the main reason to design my own printer for multi color printing.
The palette thingy is expensive, takes time to setup and is complicated. The prusa solution is kind of the same. If you need twice as much material (or more), this is a waste. Especially, when a print fails. Even with a cheap dual, tripple or quad hotend the costs of plastic are huge, compared to a tool changer.
Tool head with dual or more inlets are cheap, but the purging process is a must or your print ends up with a mess. With my old E3D I often do filament changes, when printing different parts in different colors. Even if I purge a lot and the new color is leaving the nozzle quite nice, there is always some old filament inside the hotend. Even with a big brim I often see that color blob in the middle of the bottom of my final part and showns how much filament I would have needed to get a clean transition between colors. If I imagine this waste on each layer, plus the amount to get a stable transition tower, I can imagine why a block needs to be twice as big as the actual model.
The only way to prevent this is to use a tool changer. With multiple heads you don´t need to use a purge tower. Just some purging to prime the nozzle, before wiping it off. This is usually just a 1cm of filament or so, as you don´t need a transition. It is only required to get the nose ready to print again.
I like the tool changer idea. I was impressed by this machine which is a 3 in 1 3d printer, laser engraver, cnc and two colour printer. If I didn’t live in a small 3rd floor apartment and had a garage I might be tempted. I don’t usually like tools that are multi-functional but the tool changer on this devise is quite impressive. It would be nice have a separate hot end for each colour but this one doesn’t It seems to work quite well though. It would waste a lot of filament with a complicated multi-colour print. EcubMaker - 4in1 Multi Tool 3D Printer - Unbox & Setup - YouTube
These 3 in 1 devices always come with a caveat. They not work perfectly in any department. While 3d printing and laser probably works quite ok (still just engraving at best), I would not trust it to be very good at milling.
Toolswapping may cause additional work to get the distances right. This model seems to at least handle the tool change setup on its own.
Better invest in different devices that work.
To get started with multicolor printing I suggest to start with a filament swap. e.g. doing signs, stickers and ear savers. Dr. Vax did a nice video about this, too. Unless you want to print figurines this can work for many prints.
There is also the multicolor method of printing everything facing down. So you print the first layer e.g. 5 times with swapping filaments in between to achieve a multicolor side of an flat object, which also gives a nice effect.