Sunday, May 19, 2013

Multi color parts with CubeX

Another CubeX user had questions regarding Multi color printing.
One of the questions was why do the colors assigned in Cubify Invent do not translate into the .stl file?
I have not done much multi color printing since I had not much need for it yet, but this is what I have learned so far: (please correct me if I am wrong).

Feature colors assigned in Invent or any other software can not translate into the .stl file. It could be a possible future feature, that in the CubeX software where you create the build file, you could assign colors to features of the part, but that might be difficult to do for the software depending how the .stl file was created.

Anyway, right now for multicolor parts, each color needs to be its own .stl file.
So if you create something in Invent, you export it into a .stl file which you then open with the CubeX software to create your build file which you put then onto the memory stick so you can print it with the CubeX.
In the CubeX software, you use the "Open Model Assembly" button to bring in each different .stl file. At this point there is no color assigned to the model yet. The software places the different .stl files in the same coordinate place. (on top of each other) Then you can assign what printjet/color for each .stl model to use.
For example this two color earth model. It consists of two .stl model files. One is for the "water". The other for the "land".
 
"Water".stl model

"Land" .stl model

Combined with colors assigned

Printed part.


If you are just starting out with multi color, print something simple first. Multi color parts take long to print because it has to swap between print jets. It takes especially long if you have multiple colors per layer, versus the traffic cone below were the colors are on top of each other and not within the same print layers.


 
This is a good sample part to start out with for multi color printing. Print in 0.25 resolution. You can scale it smaller for your first test print. You have to load the different "ring" files into the CubeX software, then you can assign the colors to the different rings.
If the "rings" on your printed part are not perfectly concentric, if they are just a little bit off, that's ok, I would not tinker with the offset calibration since there is some tolerance to it, if they are far off, then your printjet offset calibration needs to be adjusted.
Here are the files:
traffic cone ring 1
traffic cone ring 2
traffic cone ring 3
traffic cone ring 4
traffic cone ring 5










 

1 comment:

  1. Spent hours trying to figure this out before I found this post. Keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete

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