Add Color to Your 3D Printer

Spectrom 3D Image via Wamungo

The inability to change color on the fly is one of the major limitations of most consumer level 3D printers. Last week at CES, Spectrom demonstrated a prototype of their device which can add multi-color printing to any filament based 3D printer.

Spectrom works by adding color dyes to the filament before it enters the 3D printer. By coordinating the timing of the dye changes with the extrusion of the design, the user can change the color of the part in precisely the desired location. The Spectrom device was shown in conjunction with a Robo3D R1 printer and will be available as an upgrade to existing R1 printers.

Although the Spectrom method doesn't provide sufficient control over the color changes to provide continuous tone color printing like the 3D Systems Project 4500, it appears to provide a greater level of color flexibility than any other consumer level printer.

How would you use color in a 3D print?

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