Spectrum 3D full color printing for our FDM's?

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posted in Community by vinnie90

If forgot where I seen the video of this. If anyone knows more about it please post something.

The website sucks ass....

From my memory it was box thing that your filament comes out of into your machine....From the video and pictures it just looks like it does solid color transitions....no fades.

9 years, 3 months ago

elpulpo - Hah. I was looking for that recently. Seemed like an interesting idea but seemed to me it would cost at least as much as a 3D printer to do it effectively. I'll post a link here if I find it.

9 years, 3 months ago

nyl0cke - I got an email from some Matthew Starr guy telling me about this. http://spectrom3d.com

Last time I saw the site it had about 0 information on how it worked.

9 years, 3 months ago

elpulpo - Well it's obvious how it works. The sparkly rotating lights are connected to a cyclotron particle beam neutron insinuator via a reciprocating bulge valve. The rest is just simple stuff. Of course, ya need a flux capacitor to make it all work but, hey. Who doesn't have one of them lying around?! :-)

9 years, 3 months ago

paeonius - make sure you dont run your 3d printer over 1.21 gigawatts or the the flux capacitor is going to be a problem :P

9 years, 3 months ago

paeonius - to be honest, those prints look allot like the sharpie hacks on thingiverse
i saw a reprap project a few years ago that looked promising, using 3way extruder and color blend at the hotend, theoretically you could use RGB and get all the colors

http://richrap.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/3-way-quick-fit-extruder-and-colour.html

9 years, 3 months ago

vinnie90 - Great Scott your right! This is heavy

9 years, 3 months ago

elpulpo - Yeah. Saw this some time ago. Rich doesn't seem to have done anything with it for quite a while. Guess the fact that some sides are different colours from others may be rather limiting. FWIW, I think the answer is to somehow melt and mix powder plastics or introduce dyes somewhere before the extruder but even then, there's going to be an element of "smear" as the new colour mixes with the old in the extruder. TBH, short of a small robot arm, spraying colour onto the print using paint (ink) jets, I can't see a way of making full-colour FDM prints.

Of course, someone more ingenious than me might disagree.

9 years, 3 months ago

vinnie90 - well I hope they do come out with something that we can just attach onto our printers regardless what brand or type of FDM we have. That way we arent buying another printer.

9 years, 3 months ago

show 7 more comments

elpulpo - Yup. The FDM retrofit market will grow and grow. After all, the people who made the real money during the Gold Rush were the guys who were selling picks and shovels! I only wish I knew which horses to back! :-D

9 years, 3 months ago

vinnie90 - http://3dprintingindustry.com/2015/02/06/something3d-announces-chameleon-full-color-desktop-3d-printer/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=3DPI%2BFacebook

Just seen a update. It looks like we will have to buy another printer to have this capability....I was hoping it could just be a add-on to our already bought printers......

9 years, 2 months ago

sd3dprinting - Ya this is not the proper solution for full color printing on FDM. Too complicated, costly and limited. Printing from pellets with full color blending master batches is the way to go. Full CMYK prints at the same material cost as injection molders. Yes there are a lot of complexities that need to be worked out to ensure flawless material transitions, but we should be there within the next year. The key to making this possible is a creating a 3D printer that operates on a true closed loop control system.

Unfortunately a mod like the one I'm talking about will most definitely cost at least as much as a standard off-the-shelf 3D printer these days; so not really for consumer use.

9 years, 2 months ago