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World's First Multi-Color, Multi-Polymer 3D Printer Unveiled

Posted by samzenpus on from the look-at-all-the-colors dept.

Lucas123 writes "Stratysis today announced it will be shipping this year a printer that can use hundreds of colors and polymers to create production-grade or prototype objects without the need for assembly. Previously, manufacturers could print multi-colored parts using many different materials and assemble them after completion. Stratasis' Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer features a triple-jet printer head that combines droplets of three base materials to produce parts with virtually unlimited combinations of rigid, flexible and transparent color materials in a single print run."

10 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. "Stratysis" "Stratasis'" by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2

    Is "Stratasys" really so difficult to write?

  2. Re:Absolute B$ by Gaygirlie · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was under the impression that the tricolour-mendel can print in 3 colours, whereas this one uses 3 base-colours to create any of the millions of different combinations, very much like regular printers and RGB-displays and the likes.

  3. Nice by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is great news for prototyping! Hopefully it will help kindle innovation, new companies, new industries, manufacturing, and the economy. Let the innovation commence.

    I would think it could be pretty handy for various scientific uses as well.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:Nice by CanHasDIY · · Score: 4, Funny

      It will also kill off the entire replacement parts industry. Cars, washing machines, fridges, etc, etc.

      Riiiiiiight... because when I need a new tie-rod end in my truck, a shitty plastic one will be just as good as the cast metal part it's replacing.

      In local news tonight, tragedy struck when a moron who replaced metal parts of his vehicle with 3D printed, plastic ones caused an 18-car pile up on the interstate...

      Shit, I'd rather people keep making guns with 'em.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  4. Re:The size of a small car by 0123456 · · Score: 2

    Ok, that thing looks awesome, but it's also the size of a small car. What's the price point? $100k? more? I don't see this thing being useful to anyone but large conglomerates.

    A few weeks ago, I took a photo of a Cray-1, which cost millions of dollars and isn't much smaller than a small car, on my Android tablet, which cost hundreds of dollars and fits in my pocket. I then ran supercomputer benchmarks on my tablet, and turns out it's several times faster than the Cray.

    When technology is allowed to progress without interference, what's expensive today will be in everyone's garage in two or three decades.

  5. So how do they do this? by MobyDisk · · Score: 2

    I would love to see the insides of this thing. The biggest problem I see is that the mixing process requires you to push all the plastic out of the extruder and prime it again with the new filaments. That would waste a lot of plastic at each color change. So if you printed something with multiple colors per layer, it would waste a lot lot of plastic.

    Does anyone have any more details?

    1. Re:So how do they do this? by MozeeToby · · Score: 2

      You know all the variables though, you can figure out when to change the color so that when it gets through the extruder to the head is exactly when you wanted to change colors anyway. You might have to eject a bit if you don't want any mixing, but the waste could be quite close to zero if they did things right. On the other hand, the pictures and videos they show do not make it look cheap, it's entirely possible that they just say "you're spending $50,000 on the printer and you're worried about $10 worth of plastic?"

  6. Re:Cost? by compro01 · · Score: 2

    1. $330,000.
    2. Can't find any numbers, but 3-4 digits per litre seems likely.

    --
    upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  7. Re:Not that big news by slew · · Score: 2

    Frankly, plastics don't have the valuable electrical properties that we need for truly innovative design.

    I think you need to think outside the box a bit. It doesn't have to be metal (although metal has some useful properties other than electrical)... Some plastics can be conductive, and certain conductive materials can be embedded into plastics and integrated into the 3d printing process...

    Here's an example of using electro-conductive carbon black in the 3d printing process...

  8. Re:Absolute B$ by parkinglot777 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is a RepRap Mendel Printer designed to work with three colours or three different plastics at the same time.

    In addition to the opportunities this gives you to put lettering on 3D prints and to produce muti-coloured objects, we are researching many functional materials for future release that you will be able to build with.

    Well, I looked at the website and the information they give on the site about the tri-color is very vague! It seems that they intend to do so, and that gives me an impression that they did not have the capability of mixing color at the time they were advertising. They just want to advertise their product to get their name out first.

    My understanding to answer your question about injecting the dyes on the fly, is that it is very difficult to perfectly add a color to the clear filament. In other words, it is not easy to evenly coat the filament and it would require multiple injections to get the right color. Then they may need to mix the colors to the right saturation/hue first before applying the color to the filament. This is not a 2D that can easily do it on one run. Not saying it is impossible, but they may not find the right and economical way to do it yet.