Printing two colors

#1

Does anyone know how to get the printer to print 2 colors? I can print one color as a support material but what I really wanted to do was print a flat bored with a raised grid of another color on it. I don’t see any way to do this. Does anyone know if it can be done with the Zim software?

#2

You will need to split the model into to separate models, and then use the multi-model load option in the Zim software. There is a good video explaining dual extrusion printing here. I’ve done a couple of dual color prints on Zim and so far my results have not been too impressive. Color from one nozzle always would bleed into the other color as it oozed out. I think that skirt you see in the Zeepro videos might be there to prevent this, but I haven’t figured out that slicer option yet.

#3

jpod, I’m pretty sure the skirt option is what you want. If you set the Skirt height (layers) to 6000 it should print the skirt all the way up.

#4

Thanks Jpod, I agree with Awesome I have played with the skirt a bit and it seems to work ok when printing support material. I got a reply from Zeepro saying about the same thing as you that I’m going to post just for information.

"Dual material/color prints may be handled in two different ways.

  1. create two stls, each one being printed with a separate material/filament.
    Use the Import model page to import the two stl files.

In that case, zim will automatically switch from one extruder/filament to the other depending on what’s to be printed

2 if you only need the second material for support, generate supports automatically and print the supports with a different filament than the actual part
In that case, the user must define in the presets which filament is going to be used for support and for the model.This is done in the “Multiple extruders” tab of the presets as shown below."

#5

Hey, how can I split an STL, so that I can print in 2 colours?

Thanks!

Best, René

#6

Hi Rene, I think it depends on your particular 3d modeling software. I use Rhino and it has a boolean split option to divide a solid model into parts. Others have a similar function. I believe the video posted above shows the process.

#7

I would typically import the STL into Sketchup, and then hack the various sections apart, group them individually and stick them back together in their grouped form. Then select each group separately and Export STL as model1.stl and model2.stl