RepRapPro Mendel - Colour Enhancement.
Beta Release!
The RepRapPro Mendel Colour Enhancement fitted to a standard RepRapPro Mendel
This is the page you need if you want to buy the multi-colour/multi-material enhancement to our RepRapPro Mono Mendel 3D printer.
This is a new product, and so the lead times for it are longer at the moment to allow us to build up stock and to sort out the logistics of production, packing and dispatch. Therefore, if you order a RepRapPro Mendel and this colour enhancement together, they will usually be shipped separately. Note that the order of building and commissioning the machine is for you to make the mono Mendel first, to get it working with one colour, and then to add the other colours, so our separate shipping will coincide with that process.
How to purchase a RepRapPro Colour Mendel Enhancement
|
Mendel Colour Enhancement Kit
This gives you everything you need to enhance a RepRapPro Mendel to multi-colour/multi-material printing.
We will ship RepRapPro Mendels Colour Enhancement Kits within 20 working days of receipt of orders.
Choose your currency and location from the list below, then click the appropriate Buy Now button to order your Mendel Colour Enhancement Kit. You will be taken to the Paypal website, where you will be able to complete the transaction. If you do not have a Paypal account, you will be given the option to buy using a credit card.
|
If you don't wish to use the buttons above, please contact us and we will send you a Paypal invoice for your preferred currency for your Colour Enhancement Kit. Again you can pay this either by Paypal or by credit card.
Please note that our £ GBP and € EUR prices include Value-Added Tax (VAT) at 20%. You will have no customs or import tax to pay if you are in the EU.
VAT is not payable by us or by you on sales outside the EU, but if you live outside the EU your country may charge you customs or import tax in addition to the above prices. The HTS number for RepRap machines and parts is 84779025.
Russian shipping addresses - Please note that owing to restrictions put in place by shipping companies we are only able to ship to business addresses in Moscow (including postcodes 140000-144012 in Moscow Oblast), Nizhniy Novgorod, Krasnodar, Novorossiysk, Stavropol, St. Petersburg (including Leningrad Oblast), Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok. If you are in Russia and can arrange collection at such a business address or onward shipping then we can send you a RepRap kit.
The Enhancement Kit
Example multi-colour prints from RepRapPro Colour Mendel
The RepRapPro Colour Mendel 3D printer will allow you to print objects in three colours or three different plastics. It has three small and efficient extruder drives that are mounted on the top bars of the machine's frame, and three extrude heads mounted on the machine's X carriage.
One extruder drive and hot end is driven by the standard Mendel controller electronics, and the second two are driven by a separate slave controller that plugs into the master control electronics.
Multi-colour or multi-material 3D models are made by using the CAD software to create a separate object for each colour/material. This is usually just a case of defining a master object using the CAD system in the regular way and using that for the first colour you want. You then subtract one or two other shapes from that, those shapes being made from the second and third materials or colours. Thus you have an object with holes where the different coloured bits go, and definitions of those coloured shapes too. You read all three objects into the slicer program (which gets them all in the right relative places automatically), then slice your model to make a G Code file. The slicing program automatically adds a small hollow structure called a shield to one side of your print which it builds as the print progresses. It purges each colour head and wipes any excess in the interior of the shield's hollow.
The G Code file is then printed in the usual way. On each layer each colour is printed in turn, with a pause between the colours over the shield's hollow to let the current head cool to a standby temperature (to prevent it from oozing and spoiling the next colour) and to let the new head warm up.
The print volume available with colour/multi-materials is about 30mm less in X and Y than with monochrome prints, as all the heads have to be able to reach every part of the print.
The instructions for building and using the new RepRapPro Colour Mendel are integrated into the online build instructions on the RepRap Wiki here.
There is a video showing how colour printing works here.
What's in the Colour Mendel Enhancement Kit?
The RepRapPro Colour Mendel Enhancement Kit contains everything you need to enhance your single-colour RepRapPro Mendel to work with three colours or three different plastics. The Enhancement Kit includes:
The above contents are subject to improvement without notice.
Please note that the colour filament is provided just to get you started - it may not be the colours illustrated, and we can't supply different sample colours to order.
Blog
RepRapPro hot end developmentsRepRapPro Hot end improvements We've recently made quite a few changes ... Read More
Firmware and Github updatesSince the release of the TriColour and Colour enhancement kits, the RepRapPro ... Read More
Ideas on RepRap Printing GrapheneA recent paper on laying down graphene for making capacitors by El Cady et al. is very ... Read More
More Blog Entries