When I 3d print something, can I do it in color?

3D Printing
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1

When I 3d print something, can I do it in color?

2

Depends on your printers capabilities.
Most of the home built RepRap style printers use a single hot end… you CAN print in color… a single color. Others which have more than one hot end can print in one color per hot end. Recently a product was designed to allow single hot end printers to use more than one color. But I have not seen this device in the wild yet.

3

Ok

4

@Brandon_King ​ the color of your print will be the same as the color of the filament you print with.

5

Oooh, ok

6

In the past I have printed parts in 3 colors with a single hot end. but this was a matter of stopping the print, and manually changing filaments, then continuing the print in the newly loaded color. but this is a very cumbersome method and takes plenty of practice.

7

Ok, thx guys, now I need to get a 3d printer ;p

8

There are also printers which use colored ink/binder sprayed into a powder bed to create full color prints. But these are typically commercial / expensive machines. See Z Corp / 3D Systems and soon HP.

9

Ok

10

or prinnt in white or natural colored filament, nylon comes to mind. then used colored markers to 'paint" it. Some printed plastics take color well.

11

Thanks guys

12

Yes you can print in colour - even mixing colours with an ordinary Reprap machine using Repetier’s open source Firmware(http://www.repetier.com/firmware/v092/index.html ) and a multicolour hotend (http://deltaprinter.co.za/tri-colour/index.html) - that you can build yourself.