strategies for multicolors?

[Jeff Crews]

Hello Bill! (ccd to the group)

I printed out and installed the quick-release upgrade for the Makergear extruder, and I was wondering a couple of things: First of all, how do you have it set up? I have the heads of the bolts to the rear, then the springs, then the body of the extruder, then the hinge part, then nuts on the front of the bolts. It seems to work okay.

Secondly, I was wondering if you have tried printing with more than one color. I tried hitting Pause near the end of one final layer on a print, stripping out one filament, and sticking in the next before unpausing. But, that didn't work so well- it was halfway through the next final layer before the plastic started coming out again, and I didn't get any "new color" until the very end. So have you tried this? It'd be handy for some of the zipper pulls and stuff that have a raised design.

Thanks

JSC

PS: Ho!

[Bill Culverhouse]

Changing colors is tricky, A guy on thingiverse made a welder to melt

lengths of filament together. Since he uses dimension in SF it's easy

to figure out how long each piece should be for color changes.

 

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:9850

 

I've thought about tinkering with the gcode and SF so that

the machine with go over to a home position let me swap

plastic, run until the color changes and then continue the print.

 

What I wind up doing is switching colors a little early so that

the hotend will empty out and the new color will come out when

I want it to.

 

Good to hear that you are doing well with the new extruder.

In other news I finished my Ultimaker. It's snazzy. My girlfriend

says when it's running it sounds like a computer from the 1960s. :-)

Bleep-bloop.

 

-b