Ways to do color:
1. Paint
+Works with any 3D printer,
-takes a lot of time
-Relies on operator skill
2. Manual Filament Change
+Works with any 3D printer,
-takes clever design
-Fairly manual process
3. Multi-Material
-Requires special hardware: multi-nozzles, MMU, or Palate
-Can be tricky to setup
-A little more difficult to design for
-Also, can be kinda wasteful
+impressive and clean results
+Potential for mixing different material types in one print
4. Material blending
-Requires specialized hardware
+Can create an array of colors from a few inputs
-Because of purge it’s not full color, can’t change on a dime
-Very DIY, no option you can just buy and use
-FFF
-Doesn’t actually blend
+Potential for a gradient of material properties as well
5. Full color
-Limited availability: Davinci Color or Shapeways
+Super impressive results
-Limited materials
-A little more to a lot more complicated to design for
One method not mentioned in the videos is coloring filament before it goes into the nozzle with markers and the like. And while that’s shown some promise, it’s never been very successful. I think the DaVinci Color way really is the best way, laying down the color after the plastic, though it does require special formulation of plastic and ink to work. But it’s the closest thing to the idea I had, way back when, to add colorant in the melt zone, an idea which probably would have never worked because the heat would probably damage the pigment.
Of course the biggest problem is design. If you design a model for one color method, it won’t necessarily work for the others. But I think I’ve come up with a method that works for all of the automated ones. And, I’ve made a model to test this theory. It’s a cute alien!
I think after this I’m retiring Pamgaea. It’s been a great underlay ditty, but I’m kinda over it. In fact it may be time to change a lot of things. The new camera has come in, and I should probably spend some time getting it up and running. With that I should make a new intro, load it all into new software, and in general start over again. Fortunately, I’m kind of ahead now, so I’ve got some time for it.
Also, I’ve updated the store with some more LPD listings. People were requesting being able to order the dinos in smaller increments. And now you can.
