Dual extrusion is very high up in the list at UM since Makerbot didn't show a dual extruder for their newest generation of printers.
As Nicolinux pointed out, dual extrusion on the UM Original is still experimental. But it works. There are very nice results to be found here in the forum. 'Experimental' means you have to tweak it a bit until the results are good; it's not working extremely well out of the box.
Also... dual extrusion isn't really multicolor printing... you can print two separate colors, thats it...
So don't expect models of hight fidelity in terms of colors... Instead consider painting the model after its printed... You can get very nice results from that
If current industrial practices can't do dual color plastic (e.g. injection mold) why should people demand it for 3d printing? If everything you can find at amazon and walmart is all single color - isn't that good enough for now? I mean there are a lot of cool things at amazon and I don't really miss having a second color so much.
Most multicolor plastic things - when you look at them are multi piece. Or they are hand painted.
If current industrial practices can't do dual color plastic (e.g. injection mold) why should people demand it for 3d printing? If everything you can find at amazon and walmart is all single color - isn't that good enough for now? I mean there are a lot of cool things at amazon and I don't really miss having a second color so much.
Most multicolor plastic things - when you look at them are multi piece. Or they are hand painted.
What you mean, they can't? :unsure:
What about two-component injection moulding...? B)
Really? Okay I stand corrected. I thought these things were made as 2 seperate pieces and glued together later. But - um one *could* make the below part just as easily as 2 seperate piecs and glue it together after, right?
Picture of two-component injection moulding below - I stand corrected:
Your picture is a very good example. :cool:
Two-component injection moulding is used for heavy duty applications as e.g. handles. Two glued parts would fall apart much too fast. The cross-linking between the two materials makes the interface extremely strong, they partially flow into each others (timing of the second component is very important!).
If you want to achieve similar cross-linking effects with 3d printing, you probably have to use a rather advanced slicing software. There are now first approaches to make the slicing software packages more intelligent (no offense, Daid!). If you haven't yet read about them, check for 'Markforged' or 'Topolabs' (if you do so, imagine what these two products combined could achieve!).
If you want true multi-colours (ie 16.7 million colours or whatever it is) then I think you need to go to industrial machines with a very large cheque. There has been a lot of internet hype over the past 6 months of an American printer, in our space, that will do it but I am not aware of it making it into real existence yet. My understanding is you buy a single cartridge of, maybe CYMK, resins. Just imagine how much you are going to waste!!!!
I took a close look at the CubeX at the TCT show last year which I think makes dual/triple colour printing quite easy but I was not impressed with the quality of the samples I saw on the stands – under-awed would be an under-statement. I refer to the quality of the plastic finish not the colour.
If you want dual extruders there are several about but be aware that the current level of software makes it cumbersome. That is changing I am sure. I hear that Ultimaker are working on this subject, no doubt to tie in with their release of dual extruders on the UM2. I am sure the Stratasys takeover of MakerBot will move this along too. Simply3D is working on it too I believe.
My printer, a 3NTR has dual extruders; their new A3 sized printer has 3. It has a built in pause with automatic realignment of the nozzles once you restart which, given an appropriate model, makes it dozily simple to change filament to another colour or material and continue – having re-primed the nozzle ideally you just need to have stopped over some infill to be able to get the new filament flowing nicely before you start an outside wall. So instead of printing in two colours you can print in 4 or 6 or 8 or 27… J but of course not all at the same time.
Why would you want to print plastic in more than one colour? Put it the other way why would you want to spend all that money on 3D printing and only be able to print in one colour? If I could truly multi-colour print I could win more business from Injection Moulding companies than I currently do.
Have you tried printing an office block for display without multi-colour printing? If the block has a 100 windows that is 100 window frames and 100 pieces of glass that have to be printed separately and then stuck together – give me multiple or multi-colour printing any day!!
3D Printing is meant to be fast – spending hours and hours of painting small detail afterwards is not and is boring –and that is assuming one has the capability.
My local HS has a CubeX duo. I'm not impressed. The slicer only has 5 or so settings - they couldn't even figure out how to make bracelets because there is no way to turn off infill. At least that they could figure out. Maybe they don't know about some advanced settings somewhere.
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Nicolinux 288
Hi,
Ultimaker has released a dual extrusion kit for the Ultimaker Original. It is still marked as experimental. For the Ultimaker 2 there is no dual extrusion kit, although everything is prepared (the head has a second hole to fit another nozzle). So I'd say if dual extrusion (for multi colour prints) is very high up your priorities list, Ultimaker might not be the best candidate right now.
But I think dual extrusion is messy and does not work really well anyway. One nozzle is trouble enough - like I always say
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