My multi-color/-material printers

[spegelius]

Yeah, color bleeding is an issue with some colors. Only way to mitigate that is to increase the purge which means more waste.

I have done some multi-color models, here's one: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3167549, OpenSCAD source here: https://github.com/spegelius/3DModels/tree/master/UFO. The head is designed to be printed as multi-color part.
Also some test models I've used with testing my post-processing software: https://github.com/spegelius/3DModel...ter/Multicolor
Designing multi-color parts isn't that hard, basically it's just designing the main body and the other parts that are then removed from the main part. The stls need to exported so that they are on their correct positions, helps a lot when importing to slicers. At least with OpenSCAD, this just happens.

Different slicers do the multi-color thing bit differently:
- when mporting multiple models, PrusaSlicer asks if the models are part of a multi-color model and assembles them automatically. Not sure if it's possible the adjust individual model position after this so make sure the models are exported with proper positions. It also assigns an extruder for each model, but there's no real logic, it just starts from 1 and increments it per model so you'll need to update the assignment yourself.
- Simplify3D does some automatic arrangement an the parts are spread around the bed. To get them positioned correctly, I select them all (Ctrl +a ) and then Edit-> Align Selected Model origins. If the models are exported with proper coordinates, the parts should be properly aligned. If not, you'll have option to modify each model's coordinates, but that's like herding cats, would not recommend. After this it's a good idea to select all and Edit->Group Selection so the models are kinda locked to each other. To assing extruders, you can use Tools->Dual Extrusion wizard, but that's limited to 2-colors so if you are using more than two, you'll need to add more processes and configure them manually
- KISSlicer just arranges the models based on origin coordinates when selecting multiple models so it should just work. No fancy manual positioning in KISS so you'll need the models to be exported in proper positions. You'll need to assing the extruders, by default they are printed with the default extruder.