writing into the 3d print

Hi there,

I am not an expert on any level. I was given a task to find a 3d printer that is capable of printing good quality products and most importantly it can write into the print( i assume thats why everyone says i need 2 colour printer so the text can be printed like the surface of the object is printer using colour A the for the text part the printer uses colour B.

Can someone point me towards the direction where can i find out more about what printer would do the best job? IM not on budget too much, however i would not spend 10s of 1000 of euros.


any help would be greatly appreciated.

I think almost any 2-extruder printer could do this. More important is probably the design of the item, and the know-how of the person operating the machine.

A faster start might be to find a local person on MakeXYZ.com and ask if they can design and print your part in 2 colors.

maker bots do most jobs pretty well, and what's available today, if u want the next level of quality, go laser sintering

Wot about Wanhao duplicator? It also have dubble 2-extruder. Or you wait to the end of the year, we got some new kickstarter printer releasing quite soon.

basically any dual extruder will do this.

3d printing is 80% about the design of the part. I find it's pretty easy to add text with openscad. And makerware software allows you to simply add a text file to any existing model (within reason).

And text can also be indented or raised for single extruders. That's pretty effective as well.

So depending on what you actually want to do - potentially any 3d printer would work.

You're going to need to add some more criteria: ease of use, budget, material preferences etc :-)

you can achieve the same effect with a single extruder, by raising the letters in your design. Then pause the print before you get to the letters, change the filament to another color, and continue printing.

Does this give a good separation of colors, or does the new color often bleed?

Also, does the higher level need to be much higher, so as to give you a visual signal that it's moving there?

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Originally Posted by 3DPBuser

Does this give a good separation of colors, or does the new color often bleed?

Also, does the higher level need to be much higher, so as to give you a visual signal that it's moving there?

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The colors do not bleed. But it takes time to switch from one color to another. Check out:

http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...ight=Roxy+iris

You can see the black letters laid on top of white. And then you can see how long it takes the black to fade back to white if you look at the side of the iris box.

And... If you are running Marlin firmware, you can have the printer stop at the right time to do the filament change:

http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...ltipanel-Users

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takes time to switch from one color to another

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Does this mean the time to pause and switch, or the time for the remaining filament in the nozzle to clear out? I think the latter, although I could not see the side of the Iris box too well. If this is the case:

Maybe a remote single layer object could be modeled, with no support (does not touch bp), such that it occurs at the same Z height as the change-in-color requirement. This way, when the nozzle reaches the layer where it needs to change color (and if you are watching it), you will see it move way over to the remote object for the first time. Pause it then, and change filament.

The UltiPanel makers did the Filament change command to make their LCD display more desirable. When the Marlin firmware gets an M600 command, it pulls the nozzle away from the print and turns off the extruder motor so you can manually replace what ever filament is currently in the machine. It takes time to purge the existing color out of the nozzle. Going from light to dark doesn't take very long. But going from black back to white is a slow process. Rather than manually do it... On the Iris box, it looks kind of nice to let the black band fade back to white.

This command is useful when doing novelty items like 3D Printed business cards! I've made some of those and they definitely get some attention during the interview process.

If you have a free switch and GPIO on your electronics, you can give the command a try. It works pretty well, but you need to be by your printer when the change over happens.