I’d mostly worry about controlling color transitions, because you can’t really control the actual color properly when changing the mix for a different color. I think you’d end up needing some sort of purge between colors to avoid weird unwanted color transitions. I don’t think it would provide lower material use or a speed benefit to the existing MMU multicolor solution because of this.
Filament won’t mix in the nozzle, it is laminar flow. That’s why the multi-color filaments still print multi-color instead of becoming a mix.
Also, as someone else pointed out, color printers do not mix ink, they put tiny dots on the page - like pixels on a monitor. In fact, basically everything you look at today with color is using tiny dots of color and dithering to make it look like a different color. So, it sounds more like your problem here is that FDM printing does not have the resolution needed to make the dithering effect indistinguishable at the distance you would like. Which may be fair, but it is more likely that someone invent a way to significantly increase the resolution of FDM prints than it is that they would find a way to mix any color you want from CMYK filament “on the fly”.
Im away that ink printers don’t mix ink, but it’s the resolution issue with FDM that makes me think filament blending is the way to go
I’ve been contemplating how to blend the liquid (or near liquid) filament without introducing chaotic flow, which fortunately I have some experience with from previous projects, and in effect I believe that the filament stream could be twisted, it wouldn’t bleed strictly laminar but can be done in a way that can avoid turbidity. It wouldn’t be perfectly “blended”, but with some uneducated guesses I estimate it could get the color resolution down to about 0.08mm.
ShutUpWesley@piefed.zip 13 hours ago
That was an awesome read, but it does seem to be an evolution of the dithering in FullSpectrum.
What I’m talking about is a print-head that would combine multiple melted filaments into blending hotend, so the extruded plastic would be a blend
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
That would be impossible to control. paper CMYK printers don’t even do it like that.
ShutUpWesley@piefed.zip 12 hours ago
You may be right, but I may attempt of to build some POCs to explore the concept, because I think the challenges are manageable
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
I’d mostly worry about controlling color transitions, because you can’t really control the actual color properly when changing the mix for a different color. I think you’d end up needing some sort of purge between colors to avoid weird unwanted color transitions. I don’t think it would provide lower material use or a speed benefit to the existing MMU multicolor solution because of this.
klankin@piefed.ca 12 hours ago
Some epoxy nozzles do a pretty good job of mixing, I could see a brass or stainless nozzle like that working
Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
Filament won’t mix in the nozzle, it is laminar flow. That’s why the multi-color filaments still print multi-color instead of becoming a mix.
Also, as someone else pointed out, color printers do not mix ink, they put tiny dots on the page - like pixels on a monitor. In fact, basically everything you look at today with color is using tiny dots of color and dithering to make it look like a different color. So, it sounds more like your problem here is that FDM printing does not have the resolution needed to make the dithering effect indistinguishable at the distance you would like. Which may be fair, but it is more likely that someone invent a way to significantly increase the resolution of FDM prints than it is that they would find a way to mix any color you want from CMYK filament “on the fly”.
ShutUpWesley@piefed.zip 8 hours ago
Im away that ink printers don’t mix ink, but it’s the resolution issue with FDM that makes me think filament blending is the way to go
I’ve been contemplating how to blend the liquid (or near liquid) filament without introducing chaotic flow, which fortunately I have some experience with from previous projects, and in effect I believe that the filament stream could be twisted, it wouldn’t bleed strictly laminar but can be done in a way that can avoid turbidity. It wouldn’t be perfectly “blended”, but with some uneducated guesses I estimate it could get the color resolution down to about 0.08mm.