How to design part for two extruders

[panu 0]

Next question seems to be hard for anybody to know answer (I tried different companies): I am going to fit second extruder for Ultimaker Original for using two different colours. I am using Cubify Design software for design. There are several slicing software to support two colours, but none design software. I tried to learn Blender, which will answer the need, but Blender seemed very difficult for me to learn. I have Solidworks 2004 basic version, but that has no fuction for two colours.

Do you know any software to support that fuction?

 

[3dcase 37]

Hi,

a 2 coloured stl is called a *.amf, that could be a opion. never used it myself.

For Slicing I use Cura, can load amf's.

But I use 2 stl's to be merged.

In your designsoftware you make an object. Split it in the way you like your colours or materials to be.

In Cura the two different stl's are assigned to 2 hotends.

 

[drayson 75]

I think the question was how to split objects or design them... isn´t?

I'm a SolidWorks-user too and usually design only technical parts and no design parts or figurines.

I generate my model in the first step as one complete part.

Next step if I´d like to split it, is to start to cut away the not needed parts with defined sketches and cut-extrusions.

For the second half I swap the outer contour of the sketch to cut away the other half...

Maybe a bit weired description but I hope it is a bit understandable :smile:

 

[macua85 52]

I too have been wondering about this. I designed a cover for a tin for the wife. It was a cover with 'sugar' cut out of it. I made the same profile 'sugar' in a separate drawing as she wanted the writing in a different colour. I bought both pieces into cura, hit the merge button, and it merged them in the most illogical retarded way, i'll post pics tonight. Perhaps someone can see what i'm doing wrong.

 

[Daid 306]

Simple example of a dual color print I made long ago:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23008

Note that the print quality is a bit better then shown there, as some progress on software has been made.

 

[macua85 52]

How does cura decide where to mate/merge the parts? I was thinking it would match shapes and merge the faces?

 

[drayson 75]

Could it depend on the orientation of the parts to a point of origin in the CAD-SW?

Up to now I tried it only on very simple parts and it worked - so no experiance with fonts/letters...

@ Daid, could you please give us a brief intro how the merge i done in Cura??

 

[Daid 306]

How does cura decide where to mate/merge the parts? I was thinking it would match shapes and merge the faces?

 

It puts the origin of the models at the same position. Nothing else.

 

[macua85 52]

not really sure what that means?

 

[3dcase 37]

Some Explanation.. I hope

Made myself a simple dualcolour sugarpot, see if I can explain it...

Used Autodesk123D beta, but I'm sure the process/workflow is the same in other software.

You can use as many parts as you want, but be sure to keep the same orientation for all the parts! Use divide substract or split, whatever it's named in your software. But don't turn or move them around.

 

For now I regrouped the parts into Ext.1 and Ext.2.

Save in 2 seperate STL's,

 

Open them one by one or to at a time in Cura

It should look something like this,

 

In cura Highlight a part, and a rightmouse click gives a pulldown menu, Choose Dual Extrusion Merge.

As Daid mentioned, Cura puts the orientation points together again. And it should look like this.

(The part you Highlight before merging, is assigned to extruder1)

 

I hope this explained a little bit more...

This was the easy part :-P , now the printing starts :mrgreen: .

But it can be done, just needs some trial and error......

 

Regards Kees

 

 

 

 

[drayson 75]

@ Daid, 3Dcase: Perfect explaination from both of you :-)

As I expected just simple origin config...

 

[macua85 52]

Guys, to echo drayson, thanks for the help. Understand now and had first successful dual extrude merge! Thanks!

 

[lrob 1]

OK followed the above instructions. Have a hollow box that I want to merge a second color of a logo on five sides of the box.

Imported the box and one logo and merged them and all went well. Imported a second logo and merged it, however, it merged with the same color as the box. I wanted the third and all others to have the same color as the second.

How can I do that?

 

[gr5 2,192]

lrob please update what type of printer you have in your settings. It's okay if it's not an Ultimaker product as we discuss Cura here also.

 

[gr5 2,192]

Imported the box and one logo and merged them and all went well.

 

I assume you are "merging" in Cura. You can only merge 2 things together. So you need to create 2 stl files, one with *all* the logos in one file all lined up in the correct orientations for the 5 walls of the box.

And a separate stl with voids where the logs will end up.

Most (all?) cad programs let you put the logo on a different cad layer than the box and then when you go to export you can select just one layer at a time.

 

[drayson 75]

:-) seems i was a bit slower than george :-)

well explained dude :-)

[lrob 1]

Thanks to both of you for such a quick response. I was afraid that having to import all the logos at once was going to be what was recommended. My problem there is that I am using Solidworks and it will not let me save all the logos as an assembly in a STL file.

 

[lrob 1]

OK, I found a work around. I saved the assembly of my project as a STL file via Solidworks.

SW saved each one as a separate file. I then used Autodesk Design123 and opened each file separately ( the Box first) and they went in to exact position on the box.

I then deleted the box and saved all the logos as one STL file.

I then went in to Cura and used the above instructions and everything worked as it should.

Thanks to all.

PS: I did update my printer type, I am looking to get a printer with a dual extruder and want to make sure I can to the software side first.

 

[drayson 75]

Great - good to hear it works, but I´m sure there is also a possibility in SW to safe/export just a portion of an assambly without a autodesk workaround...

I will take a look later when back at my home pc.

 

[lars-busack 0]

I´m sure there is also a possibility in SW to safe/export just a portion of an assambly without a autodesk workaround...

 

If you're working on a part (.sldprt), you can hide the bodies you don't need to export.

Same should apply for assemblies (.sldasm).

Step 1: hide unwanted bodies.

Step 2: deselect all, then save as STL.