Adventures in Two Color Printing

      A little while ago I decided that, since the printer is getting pretty good at the basics I should begin to test out what the little machine could do. Thus, began my adventures in two color printing. Anyone who is involved 3D printing is probably quite familiar with the topic of multiple extrudes. The theory is, the more extruders, the more materials you can print in one print. Unfortunately I only have 1 lonely extruder, so its only one material for me for the moment. But we cant have that, now can we.

I can change the filament midway through the print. Ok, I might be a little over exaggerating this a little after all its not so Earth shattering. But personally I was VERY impressed with the outcome.

 What you're seeing here is the logo for my robotics team. (Vae Victus which means "Woe to the Conquered", our number, and our school: just in case you were wondering) Trying to keep on the cutting edge of things, our team is printing these out as give-aways.. The only problem is... It has two colors.

Not a problem.. Here you can see how the printer is putting on the first red layers onto the black bases. Eventually its going to build up into something like this.

      Now, what would be the point in telling you all of this without telling you how. First off, im using Pronterface as my printer control. The great thing about it is you can pause the print move the printer around, hit resume and it goes right back to where it started. This means I can start off the print in black, pause the print when it gets to the fist part of the logo, change to red, and resume the print. The characteristics of ABS Plastic makes it so that the two different plastics stick together like they are one. Perfect.

The one difficult part of this is sometimes, especially when moving from a darker color to lighter, you have to run the last color out for a while. This can be a waste of filament. For example in this print it took a while to get all the black out of the red. The results are worth it. I hope this inspires you to try it your self!

      On another note, my robotics team  will be at the NOVA MakerFaire, so come check us out. We will be giving out these key chains so stop on by if you want one! ;)
       I'm planning on stationing my self at the Vienna Wireless Society's table. The VWS is the local Ham Radio club which I'm very active in. Ill have the Printer there showing off a 3D printed Antenna I made. Hopefully Ill have a post about that project soon. Hope to see you there!

Keep It Awesome
-Jacob