I see that people are using markers to successfully color prints.

3D Printing
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1

I see that people are using markers to successfully color prints.

what would be involved with integrating something like an inkjet to color the filament before the extruder?

If not an inkjet a bunch of sharpies on solenoids to color the filament just prior to the print head?
http://makezine.com/projects/make-42/rainbow-extrusion-coloring-3d-printer-filament

2

New inks. I would suggest you research the UV cured ink printers common in the industry. They have petite versions designed to print on finger nails, to big monsters that can plate dozens of coffee mugs. It is only a matter of time. The machine you are envisioning in mind, already exists down at the beauty salon… :slight_smile: Designed to print directly on 3D objects, using inks that either cure with UV, or acid based and designed for the materials.

3

@James_Hutchinson do the inks look like they would survive going through the hotend?

4

David, don’t think that away. Think instead 'If I bought this fingernail UV ink printer, and it can conform a design around a 3D object… What if I stuck it in post process…"

5

Thats a great article though… Considering the method allows any level of participation, from markers in kids hands to hacked up old pen plotters… it can change the output considerably.

My wife says I can make anything she can get at the dollar store… preprocess mixing makes manufactured looking things. And her dream is to see whats in her vision, with pantone accuracy on that model once finished.

Thus am not critical of the process, just dreaming of a hybrid… of a 3D UV ink finger nail printer, sitting just behind my hotend :slight_smile:

That said, I know she just left to fetch back a box of sharpies and base colored filament to play…

6

To my knowledge @Vik_Olliver ​ was playing around with this process previously. He might have something to say on this.

The main issue is if you want to change the colour mid-print, you need to know how much plastic is still left between the colouring area and the hot end that still needs to be extruded, and then there is the transition area when it mixes colours between the two zones. That is if you don’t want to stop printing, pull/purge, resume (and waste all that plastic that you http://could.be using as fill) of course.

7

I don’t think that’s the way to go as the ink needs to hit the top as well and all sides . It would not be even cnsistancy.