14 DAY TRIAL // Most FDM 3D printers can only build objects from one color, unless you somehow rig it to combine a few, or stand guard to change the extruder spool and hope for the best. Now, though, there is an easy way to upgrade your printer, thanks to 3DMakerLab.
3DMakerLab is a company from Italy which took advantage of this week's MakerFair (taking place in Rome) to reveal its interesting invention.
Called Multiextruder NPr2, the product is exactly what the name says: an extruder capable of accepting and processing six different filaments at once.
The goal is to allow objects to be created in up to six colors at once, instead of you being forced to settle for the same color, and maybe painting the final product over somehow.
The Multiextruder NPr2
Currently, the extruder is still a prototype, which means, among other things, that it can't actually allow for six-color printing. It's limited to four.
The extruder is based on Prusa I3 extruders but has a lot of different and new parts, as well as accessories that will help with calibration and correct design problems.
Anyway, the prototype, as it is right now, has a pair of nema 17 stepper motors, one that tracks filament and the other to select the color. It is this that allows you to install the new extruder on a normal two-extruder board.
Unfortunately, this does kind of make it useless to you if your 3D printer has a single extruder, single-filament configuration.
Then again, if you don't have the money or the inclination to buy a dual-extruder printer, you probably won't care enough to even want quad- or six-color printing in the first place.
The slicing software currently running the extruder can't control multi-color extrusion properly, but Nicola Patucelli of 3DMakerLab has explained that the final product will have that. Also, it should be able to control multi-color extrusion on a single hot-end. So also normal 3D printers, rather than just dual-extruder ones.
How long until the final product arrives
It's actually pretty hard to say, because it will ultimately fall to the software to control the extruder attachment once it's finalized. 3DMakerLab is collaborating with a software developer, and hopes to have everything ready by December 2014, in time for Christmas, but we can't be sure it will happen as planned yet.
The Multiextruder NPr2 would definitely be a great presence for the holidays though. It would let you produce cooler figurines, action figures, even multi-colored prosthetics with the recipient's name written on them.
