3D Printing Custom Colors with Markers?!

[@JoshDesigns]

So who’s gonna put servos on each marker and write software to control the markers going in and out?

[@warjt4737]

You should talk to Stuff Made Here about that

[@Scott_C]

Add the marker movement to the GCode and you can colorize specific parts of the extrusion object.

[@nekokna]

why not do this with actual inks?

[@Scott_C]

@@nekokna Have you actually ever changed the ink on an Ink Jet printer... It's messy. And that's just printing on a flat piece of absorbent paper. A marker is a great way to apply color to the fillament without spraying ink or toner all over the place.

[@dhupee]

maybe use cheap arduino and servo is a better option

[@MakersMuse]

Aahha yeah I remember that spray paint experiment. IIRC the silver had the same issues with ruining print layer adhesion but (at the time) no other filaments looked like it. I might have to steal the pink black combo it's gorgeous!

[@Scott_C]

Hey! Glad you saw this. In the video he asks for next steps. I think your experience with robots maybe necessary for step 2 (3?, the servo motors).. See below: So next steps: add servo motors to the pen holders so they can be shifted on and off the fillament automatically. That way the color changes can become more smooth and you don't have to sit there doing it manually. The next step after that is add the servo* motor's movement to the GCode and have the pens be applied only when coloring specific parts of the print. EG: printing a man, start with a translucent skin tone, tell the GCode to only apply the blue/black pen when printing his pants. Apply red when printing his shirt. Don't apply the pens when printing his hands/face, apply the brown/black/yellow/green(?) when printing his hair.

[@squidcaps4308]

@@Scott_C Stepper motors are way too complicated for what can be done with a solenoid or servos. You want on/off type off action, not carefully controlled axis of rotation. Arduino probably is needed to handle a simple logic so that for ex 4 bits of information (can be done in decimal too..) can be used to control 4 colors. What you don't want is a bunch of datalines when all you need is to control few things on/off. Also, different kind of tip for the sharpie would decrease the number of pens needed. Quite sure that 2 is enough if the tip is carved to a different shape. I am thinking about a chamber that the filament goes into, dips into a bath of solvent based ink or goes thru a sponge. Using individual sharpies is nice way for a proof of concept but.. it needs to be colored in one stage, using one thing, not multiple separate things.

[@alakani]

@@squidcaps4308 I'm thinking even more data lines than the other guy and a couple inkjet modules with external tanks

[@Scott_C]

@@squidcaps4308 You're Right! * I was thinking of Servo motors not stepper motors when I posted that.

[@Scott_C]

@@Teleputer if you're going to go through the trouble of "hooking up" Ink Cartridges, you would be better served with using Toner cartridges. Toner is a plastic coated ball of ink. The plastic won't corrupt the fillament. If we've learned anything from Peter Brown and his experiments with Resin mixing water into plastic compromises the integrity of the plastic.

[@KeithOlson]

Thanks for doing all of that experimentation! Two things I learned from my own: 1. Using a brown marker (...or multiple markers in different shades of brown) with wood filament will give it pseudo-grain markings. You only want the very tip to touch so as to leave a thin streak, as you *don't* want even coverage. I used this technique to print a plaque as a gift for a friend and it was *very* effective. 2. You can use a jumbo marker and drill a hole through the felt for complete coverage in one shot.

[@SardyParty109]

You should try using highlighters to see if the end result glows under blacklight.

[@monstrosity_01]

That's such a cool idea omg

[@magicmonkey7075]

Teachers: “Highlight the important parts” You: *3D prints a replica of their nose using highlighters at the feeder*

[@ozgunkara1930]

Yeah I used sharpie neons and it really does. Go for it!

[@oxyuran5998]

That was my first idea as well. Might also be interesting to see whether different brand highlighters deliver different results.

[@pcfllms]

Aye he made a video on this idea!

[@ZentaRobotics]

Next step: Add small servo motors for automatic color change.

[@Nobody-Nowhere]

add a piezo printhead

[@xboxgamer9216]

Someone had made that sorry I don't have the link

[@Noah-ek8hp]

MY GOODNESS! This has to be one of the coolest, most creative prints I have seen in such a long time!

[@BillieRuben]

:D thanks for the shout out Devin!! These experiments are so so awesome! I'm gonna have to try some clear! That black pink is divine! These are so gorgeous. I love them! 😻😻

[@greengate3d]

I'm kvelling here! Two geniuses!

[@jjpaq]

What if you designed a custom cap for each Sharpie, or a clip for somewhere on the barrel, that holds a 5-10 gram weight and helps it press harder into the filament without creating too much friction? Might help with colour transfer.

[@sems]

I'm testing a rubber band to apply additional pressure. With white pla filament I'm not getting my results as saturated as Devin got.

[@Idiomatick]

notching the tip will give better contact

[@jjpaq]

@@Idiomatick Smart.

[@ejnarwibejuul8447]

You just saved me from giving boring Christmas presents. Thanks 😄

[@hbwh19]

This got me thinking about what would happen if you used some of those erasable ink pens. The ink gets invisible with Friction (Heat) but can be visible again if exposed to cold temperature for a time.

[@cloudybeee]

woah, custom color change filament!

[@alexd8532]

cool, color changing filament, also what if you do the erasable ink pen thing with already rainbow filament

[@mhelvens]

I imagine a filament could be designed with this technique in mind. Something that can better absorb the pigment? Actually, there already are filaments that absorb moisture, like Nylon. Usually that's a bad thing, but I wonder if it makes Nylon a perfect candidate for use with the blender.

[@1FatLittleMonkey]

[belatedly] What about one of the "wood" filaments? The wood dust mixed in the polymer might hold the ink better than any polymer alone.

[@curlygurly2112]

@@1FatLittleMonkey paper or plastic? no. both.

[@ashvanes484]

I have had my printer operational for a month or less now, and I saw this and knew I had to do it. Finally had some "free" print time and I got a Sharpie holder printed up, and I just love it. I have only done a handful of pieces with this so far, but I've loved every single one and they've definitely gotten better each time. Thank you so much for the suggestion. I will be trying these indefinitely now. I have a specific idea I want to build on too.

[@ziggystardog]

What about highlighter pens? The ink is more translucent and fluorescent and might lead to interesting results.

[@haakonbledsoe]

The ink might cause issues, highlighters are water based i think and sharpies are alcohol based.

[@aydentaylor2942]

man the amount of nostalgia i got from watching this video. i haven’t watched one of your videos in like 4 years and you showed up on my recommended. crazy how far you’ve come

[@DanRollinsAfrodan]

I never comment on videos but feel compelled to with this one! Thank you for making such a comprehensive video showing an awesome technique. I'm new to the 3D printing world but the taste I've had so far let's me know how much time it must have taken to research and test all the various options and tweak all the colors. A video with just the basic technique and a few examples would have been enough but you've gone above and beyond to do lots of that experimenting and documenting for all to see. First video of yours I've ever seen but I'm subscribed already and keen to watch more. Keep up the awesome work!

[@make.anything]

I appreciate the kind words, thanks Dan!

[@Scott_C]

Amazing! So next steps: add servo motors to the pen holders so they can be shifted on and off the fillament automatically. That way the color changes can become more smooth and you don't have to sit there doing it manually. The next step after that is add the servo motor's movement to the GCode and have the pens be applied only when coloring specific parts of the print. EG: printing a man, start with a translucent skin tone, tell the GCode to only apply the blue/black pen when printing his pants. Apply red when printing his shirt. Don't apply the pens when printing his hands/face, apply the brown/black/yellow/green(?) when printing his hair. Also so glad you tried the metallic markers I suggested. Thanks for exploring that idea.

[@alejandroperez5368]

Now Stefan needs to test if those inks+heat don't expel toxic fumes.

[@backonlazer791]

At least the alcohol/water from the markers should just evaporate, but the real question are the pigments.

[@sperzieb00n]

@@backonlazer791 plus, PLA plays well with alcohol solutions

[@fish9468]

@@backonlazer791 some sharpies use xylene which is a neurotoxin.

[@nialltracey2599]

@@backonlazer791 "just" evaporate...? Isn't evaporation like *the* most important stage in making toxic fumes...?

[@backonlazer791]

@@nialltracey2599 Yes, but I said the *alcohol/water* should evaporate. Whether or not something creates toxic fumes entirely depends on what is the substance that is evaporating/burning and/or if something can cling onto it. Although ethanol is toxic in large quantities, neither that nor water are a problem at these quantities.

[@Bane9900]

Few ideas for you: What if you used some alcohol based CYMK ink in tanks. Then run tubes from each color tank to just before the hot end, where the ink is dripped on to a conical rubber wiper that the filament passes through. A felt ring would hold too much ink and reduce the color resolution I think, but that could be another option. The extruder itself seems to mix the colors pretty well. Here are a couple of methods I thought of for physically controlling the inks: a) the tanks could be pressurized with compressed air and controlled by solenoids. b) a peristaltic pump could be used on the output tube of each tank.. Control seems like it would take a lot of trial and error to work out the kinks. OR. What if you designed a bracket for inkjet printer ink cartridges. Modern Ink cartridges include the print head directly in them, so it should be possible to print on to filament with only that. Probably better to pick a cartridge model that has individual color cartridges, so it is simpler to align all the print print heads to the filament. I'm not sure what control signal the cartridges use - it might be easier to hack up an old printer so that you can use its control board too. OR. What if you some how fed Laser printer toner into the heat break. Laser toner works by hot melting around 100C. It may be possible to color filament using that for much more economically than inkjet cartridges.

[@oculicious]

would be cool if you could have a textured model and then the slicer encodes RGB data into the slicing that controls how much of each CMYK color is applied, that way you could change colors mid layer and actually print textured models, you could also change the printer ink for whatever pigment works best for filament

[@eugene-d]

I'd love to see how these blended colors look after surface made smooth with a solvent fog. Great experiments. Thanks!

[@ethanm1943]

Imagine a machine that takes out the sharpies and puts them back in again so you would have the same result as a mosaic pallette, but only with 1 spool of filament and way less expensive stuff. I would buy it any day.

[@tissuepaper9962]

Then you could basically do PWM with the markers to get silky smooth color transitions. That would be cool.

[@ethanm1943]

@@tissuepaper9962 Yes, it would be much easier to make smooth gradients

[@veryyelloo4130]

im a little curious of the lightfastness of this method as sharpies (i believe) are dye based and not pigment based

[@techformsmaster930]

So I tried this with oil-based sharpie paint markers, and it works pretty well, one sharpie isn't enough to fully color it, giving you a semi-translucent print and better control over the color blending. It doesn't seem to effect print quality to much either, even the silver sharpies.

[@smorzYT]

Companies that sell colored filaments: Stop that right now. We need your money >:(

[@wildicydragon8877]

smorz but sharpie companies yess buy more

[@PhoenyxAshe]

Then they need to make a skin tone that both looks like real skin tones (not something between Pepto and baby pink, thank you), or doesn't bind up on the spool so much I have to hover over every print (looking at you, Paramount).

[@N.M.E.]

*Sweating nervously*

[@RyanPaton]

@@PhoenyxAshe what is "skin tone" anyway? I really wish we could stop using this term as it seems that in 99 percent of cases it excludes everybody on the planet who isn't Caucasian!

[@PhoenyxAshe]

@@RyanPaton Honestly, I meant all skin tones. My current experience has been mostly with the caucasian tones yes, and most of those what I've come across has been dreadful, but a number of the browns and amber-ish tones I've looked at as well. Paramount does have a nice ranch of "not just white people" shades, but their "Skin Tone - Dark still looks a bit more like "California Tan" on the sample - haven't printed anything with that one yet. The Terra Cotta came out looking nice, but I had to babysit every print file because of how easily the filament liked to bind up on the spool. I will probably give them another chance after the holidays, but it was a bit frustrating.

[@justinkase1360]

The concept of coloring filament instead of using different filaments is amazing. I never thought of it but now I'm convinced that this is the future. Print heads with built-in ink applicators are bound to happen and just simplify 3d printing to an extreme degree. Clear or white filament could get one almost any color and color could be changed at any step during the print or even continuously. Amazing.

[@hightde13]

If you ever re-visit this I would be interested to hear how well alcohol ink based pens would work with this technique as well as how nylon works with this technique in general.

[@steviemeep9686]

Is it safe to heat sharpie ink at that high of a temp???

[@papereagles2651]

I'd expect so. the solvent in the sharpies evaporates quite fast so its likely not flammable once it reaches the hot end

[@igxniisan6996]

11:42, _The color of "Crying Obsidian" in minecraft.._

[@mischiefthedegenerateratto7464]

Spot the kid

[@TheAechBomb]

@@mischiefthedegenerateratto7464 minecraft is played by people of all ages

[@PhoenyxAshe]

@@TheAechBomb Yep. I play it (super casual)... and I'm in my 50s.

[@marcusrauch4223]

I‘d say obsudian in general.

[@TheAechBomb]

@@marcusrauch4223 obsidian is less purple though

[@penquinmaster]

I love that this works so well for making colored filament. Especially for colors that you can't buy. I am disapointed that the metallic ones ruined the layer adhesion but hey, you can't have everything I guess.

[@bartomiejrapacz1303]

I would love to see "mosaic with markers", it could automate color changing :-)

[@techformsmaster930]

yes

[@Rsm583]

Agreed

[@noamtsvi]

Definitely

[@JohnD-JohnD]

I've done this with my printers. I had a couple prints where I wanted to put a stripe in the layer, but didn't want to change out filament. Just held a marker to the filament and it blends fine. Cool adapter you made. Easier than holding it on the spool.

[@AndyDonaldson85]

Is it possible to use this process to get a wood grain effect? I think it would be cool to see a glow in the dark wood grain 3D printed object.

[@GSJester]

How many mm of filament do you use before the pens start wearing out? Changing them look dead simple, but timing the swaps to keep colors constant would be good. Also, any issues with clogging up nozzles?

[@kbshah]

Will this attachment work with Ender 3? Looks so much fun, I wish I could design, thanks so much for sharing! Thanks 🙏

[@zortraxtheprotogen881]

Yes!

[@GoingtoHecq]

I've done this a lot too. It's fun but gosh is it time consuming. Sharpies work well. I really like using them on clear petg and pla. It is my favorite because it's hard to find the colors I want in clear filament. The colors come out butter than if you just used magenta, yellow, and cyan inks. Your advancement by making a holder is pretty great though. I really want to dye my filament entirely, and maybe one day figure out a system for adding pigments directly to the hot zone. There's a limit to how much pigment can be on the surface compared to the volume of filament we're dying. So perhaps a great halfway point is to just color the prints after they are printed, or injecting into the hot zone just above the mozzle.

[@РоманБогданов-м4й]

My mind is just blown away! Damn, I'm so glad I clicked on this video! Thank you very much Davin!

[@DanteYewToob]

Maybe you should send this idea over to Stephan to test the strength of the prints! I'm curious if the chemicals in the sharpie affect the strength of the filament, and if giving the sharpie more time to fully dry (by mounting it further) lessens any negative affects. I do know that the solvents in sharpies can negatively affect certain plastics. In fact, I have a lunchbox from when I was a kid and the plastic went a bit brittle, and the place where we wrote my name actually crumbled first! The solvents weakened the plastic a bit... but that plastic was 20yrs old in a storage unit... sooo.. Anyway, this is awesome and I hope to buy a pen blender setup for my new Ender 3 Pro when it arrives!

[@MikeMan21070]

I've been waiting for this since his snapmaker video

[@DinnerSonic]

I'm still pretty new to 3D printing and don't have a lot of filament colors, this might have come just in time for some colorful family gifts for the holidays! I wonder if this'll work as well with transparent PETG(the only transparent type I own) as it does with the clear PLA... or maybe even scented markers for scented gifts? Is that safe after the marker ink has been heated up so many degrees?

[@FunDumb]

Who knew that the nose flute would also work as an additional form of abstinence.

[@blackhawk2788]

I like how you consider your viewers as friends 😊

[@theowenmccarthy]

Imagine making a separate cnc machine that could use certain markers at certain times throughout the print, which is tied to the gcode so that you could have a fully colored print of a model with only a clear filament. No need for multiple heads and filaments.

[@TheBartrab]

Kind of like the Mosaic Palette, but without the need to fuse the filaments! I love that it removes the need to have an array of these expensive, large spools of differently coloured filament.. This just seems to make way more sense if the goal is just to colour you prints tbh.

[@dbonk6264]

Wow, that looks so beautiful. I was having a conversation about something similar with some friends yesterday. I think the next step is use standard printer techniques onto 3D printers. So having the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black and maybe white ink/pigment cartridges on top of the DD and literally print the colours directly onto the transparent filament before it goes through the hot end. With a bit of technical magic, the potential is full control of colours in every print.

[@notadam4566]

I saw this somewhere. I just didn’t know if it was safe to use with my printer

[@make.anything]

With 6 markers I got the occasional clump of pigment but no clogs. 3 markers works pretty smoothly.

[@mj991990]

Devon you absolute madlad!! How does this man not have 10 million subs yet?! I absolutely adore the humble genius that is MakeAnything

[@AndrewAHayes]

Maybe by using a timer to orchestrate the changing of the pens a uniform colour pattern could be achieved

[@jasoncherry2508]

The issue I see with the timer idea is that the time the printer takes to create a single layer is different for every layer. So maybe something could be triggered off of counting movements in the Z-direction to allow for a uniform color change per X# of layers?

[@Bronymago]

Lol, around a week or two ago we with my friend when working on fixing flash forge printer - did exactly same thing painting PLA filament with permanent marker. And boom, you did a video obout this! Same discovery on different sides of planet! Amazing!

[@NathanOberdier]

Could this be damaging to my printer? I would live ri try this great video!!!!!

[@AmeshaSpentaArmaiti]

if anything’s getting damaged, it’d be the nozzle, just make sure to have extras on hand if you’re worried. otherwise, you can clean the marker ink off with alcohol.

[@DanRichmondFPV]

NICE!!! Was about to do a 3 color pause at layer and filament change but was missing one color. Now i will try pause at layer just to change sharpie colors and resume. Thanks for the video im inspired!!

[@greengate3d]

Frickin' SENSATIONAL, Devin!!!!! SEN-SATIONAL!!!

[@ET_AYY_LMAO]

I always wanted to do this ever since I build my first printer back in 2012 and used a sharpie to mark off 10cm for testing the extruder E-step values. My plan was always to use cheap servos and simply push the sharpies down on the filament using that... But back then the slicers didnt support tool changes and there was no fork of marlin that communicated with an external coloring unit... I guess it would be trivial to create a drop in replacement for something like the Prusa MMU. I think I will try this out again. The biggest problem is that sometimes, inking the filament makes it colored for a long time, so wiping can be a problem, also it will either need to be placed very close to the hot end, or you will need to do some G-code post processing to find out where to insert codes for swapping colors prematurely so you can have fast color transitions.

[@anystrap404]

Way cool! I'm excited to try this with my lighter colored flexible filaments. :)

[@ParodieHecker-mobile]

😏

[@PlaneAwesome]

This is so great Devin! I have an idea to use some servos to precisely control when to apply what colours... I might have to give this a shot!

[@yeetpotato9959]

can you try this on a bowden system?

[@someonestolemyname]

I have always use this method to get my colored print. They look really amazing and if you are coloring the filament manually you can easily create a palette of color without all those filament merging thing. The main downside is that you may need to purge the remaining filament before it returns to transparent. With solid color filament like HIPS it really dulls the color a lot and black markers looks grey even when I manually mark 2 whole layers with a zebra marker. The best result I have got is still from those PETG filament, since it is very translucent and its good layer adhesion means that I don't need to worry about it crumbling on the side.

[@oskartzon]

The mounting pieces seems to be missing in the .zip, only two files in there.

[@make.anything]

Hmm sometimes it takes a few hours for everything to show up

[@oskartzon]

@@make.anything Thanks! Also having a lot of fun with the TippiTree, looking forward to try to make some varied leaves with this technique

[@TheWoodfordreserve]

9:53 - Will you be doing a review of the SV03? Thanks for your content, it's really interesting!

[@ChozoSR388]

Have you considered trying this with Prismacolor markers? They're a fair bit more expensive, but the color quality is amazing. Edit: Also...I wonder if you could make this work with Mr. Sketch scented markers.

[@kimkeam2094]

Unbelievable! I have never heard of this method and look forward to trying it out. Thanks so much for letting us know!

[@buildersmark]

Love this idea. Try 1 silver metallic with 1 blue with translucent filament

[@Scott_C]

He said that metallic markers corrupted the plastic's integrity. 6:50 Edited to add the time stamp for when he shows that.

[@buildersmark]

@@Scott_C He also used 6 silver markers at that clip. I'm just suggesting 1 silver & 1 blue.

[@ChaseHukill]

What about using the Chisel Tip sharpie or the Ultra fine point sharpie?

[@mpcrazyscience7097]

9g servos could make this into a cheap multicolour add-on

[@niklassteenackers3979]

was thinking the same :p

[@Nepoxification]

But you'd hat to perfectly time the servos to work reliably. I thought about it too but the following problem came up when thinking further. Lets say you calibrate that add-on by measuring the time (x) it takes from applying the sharpie and seeing the colorchange on your nozzle. (lets assume you constantly print with 100% flowrate) Then you tell your servos to apply the sharpie x amount of time before your colored G-Code is executed. The moment you have to retract, you already mix up the pigments in your hotend. So you cannot work reliably with your colors as they mix up, come too early due to retraction messing things up or whatnot. I try to think of coming up with a solution to this but it's hard :-D

[@niklassteenackers3979]

@@Nepoxification Yup... it will be difficult to achieve true multicolor printing. I suppose you could minimise the colour changes by printing all of colour x of 1 layer, then continue layer 1 with color y , and so on... This doesn't fix the problem tho

[@mpcrazyscience7097]

@@Nepoxification this would work perfectly fine with a purge tower like most multicolour printers use

[@henry_tsai]

Maybe extrude to other place when switching color, only print when the color is stable?

[@bonovoxel7527]

I had to know this couldn't be an idea of mine even tho I had it by myself. I print since less than six months... Well thanks for the journey and the info! I experimented it while tryin a B/W Hueforge painting, The famous Andy Warhol's Marilyn picture. I realized i didn't have as much grey tones as i ned, and saved the day this way. But you already took the discipline to another level, dude! :)

[@dowie7745]

This is fantastic Dave, thank you very much. I have already bought the markers and will test it on my Genius artillery. Being able to automate it would be incredible, hehe. Thanks mate.

[@polardesigns3d524]

I loved your iteration of your original design! I have created a similar upper filament guide mount for my ender 3! The sharpie attachment is removeable so it can be used as a guide with and without the attachment. Great work!

[@adeo1231]

Could you share the guide? Would love to try it

[@fotikcanon2965]

футболка зачет!

[@elk4803]

Cool T-shirt!

[@Физик-г4о]

Точно!

[@bk86a]

Я тоже заценил😃

[@live4twilight4ever]

wow these are beautiful. so cool how much control you can have for surprisingly low expense.

[@SimonCoffman]

Looks like the next step is for it to be automated, like a Mosaic Palette, but with Sharpies

[@callsignapollo_]

just made one for myself and already enjoying the results! perhaps make a mount for the sidewinder? the sovol mount is just a tad short, but at the right height to clamp to the back of it. think it would be the perfect addition to an already amazing underdog printer!

[@user-vn7ce5ig1z]

Knitters have long baffled people by making intricate patterns with different colors, now 3D printers are catching up. 😀

[@jasminezed7839]

I never thought to try this with yarn! Thanks for the idea

[@zerorusher]

Is it possible to set the slicer to send extra gcode which isn't related to the printer movement, isn't it? If so, I believe it wouldn't be hard to use an arduíno connected to the printer "listening" for some specific signals to activate servos and change the markers... This way it could be actually possible embed the information about the colors in the model...

[@jtjames79]

If you stuck an inkjet as close to the printhead as you could get, you could CMY all the filament.

[@ziggystardog]

I’m wondering if shorter pens might give you more clearance and a larger print area. I recall at one time they sold shorter Sharpies. Back in the day I used pen plotters that had very stubby pens. Servos or solenoids might select combinations of colors. Another thought would be hacking an array of inkjet cartridges.

[@matthewhubka6350]

Thumbnail is clickbait, I wanted to 3D print in infrared and sharpie doesn’t sell that color

[@DheerajBhaskar]

Tldr - it doesn't make sense to use the word color for frequencies outside visible range Although color sort of depends on frequency*, that's only in the visible range. There's no mapping of color to frequency outside visible range. *There are colors like white, purples, black, etc which don't correspond to any single frequency. Colors eye can identify are only 10 million discrete colors, and there are a lot more frequencies and input signal combinations to the eye.

[@ryan_pencil9727]

I remember I discovered something similar while I was troubleshooting my feed mechanism and I got lil blue lines all over my test print but I didn't even think about taking it this far!

[@id104335409]

I never understood why the 3d printing companies never made a color 3d printer using ink and colorless filament. It is a "in your face" solution to 3d printing in color. Meanwhile they tried various methods of mixing different color filaments like multiple heads or one head with splicing different filaments. All extremely complex solutions that can only use several separate colours. When you look at a regular paper printer and all the colours it can use - the solution should have been absolutely obvious. Use ink and inject the colours in the molten filament. Have unlimited colors and no extra cleanup block besides your actual print. And yet - nobody ever did it. I don't understand why.

[@MissDrawable]

tbh I can see them not wanting to as colored inks are crazy expensive (think about the price of printer ink) as well as adding a extra layer of complexity for every print and another thing that could go wrong. Doesn't necessarily stop someone from modding something like that in though, I can see a company selling a accessory peice that does just that. I do recall seeing a older vid that mentioned a machine that melts down scrap filament to make new stock, maybe it would be better to have a system like that for that particular machine?

[@id104335409]

@@MissDrawable Yeah, but I'm talking companies creating brand new products to sell and eventually they all failed. Rather than reinventing the wheel, they could have just taken an existing proven technology and just strap it on their printer and they would have a done product. Instead we have this one guy showing us how to color our prints with markers. And everyone still makes the same old fdm printers every year. We could have color printing 5 years ago.

[@make.anything]

I think XYZ printing tried at some point... maybe they patented it and then died?

[@MetalheadAndNerd]

I guess it needs some dedicated maker to perfect this technique and then all the Chinese printer manufacturers will happily adopt the system as their new feature.

[@id104335409]

@@MetalheadAndNerd so true.

[@OzAndyify]

Nice! So, how to automate? Arduino with 3 servos and a feed sensor mounted just after the spool should be doable. I thought that maybe g-code analysis might be an easy route, but without the original STL file with color values for each vertex, it just won't work. The color commands need to be applied mainly to the borders, roof and floor, but all the infill and support must be accounted for. Alas, it will require slicer wizardry to allow model color to be printed. I suspect a more complex dye injection in the hot end will be needed for great resolution too, but it will be interesting to see how fine you can get with markers on filament. Even a "dumb" color changer could be nice for wood and other random textures.

[@selenmolla9926]

Imagine having a third hand

[@smorzYT]

You should try doing stuff to change the color of the filament first, like soaking it in ink, or something like that. It would be interesting to see how it turns out. Maybe having 4 instead of 3 markers on the same level can do something interesting. Or a video where you showcase some good marker-prints and we have to guess what you did in the polls. You should also try this with different filaments, like NinjaFlex. Just a few ideas. Loved this video!

[@RedHeavy-]

What only 25k views?!

[@peterfalcon2691]

i could see this improved by using some kind of swab and printer ink like the epson eco tank ones that are dirt cheap . And you could use some kind of tanks were you would mix the colors first and the pillament would only touch the color you want by a servos with the swabs clamping on the fillament when you want a specific color from one of the tanks .I see alot of potential in this ,you could even swap colors on the fly by making the printer waste some of the filament in the corner while it changes colors . Excited to see more of this .

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

Heh... "just scratching the surface of what can be done using this technique"... don't you mean "just marking the surface"? ;P

[@MrScorpianwarrior]

This is actually a really cool way to possibly do mid-print color changing. You would have to write a custom GCODE interpreter possibly but you could, in addition to providing print head instructions, provide color shift instructions and make colored prints.

[@umbrellahole]

SOOOO you are making this look like a cool idea but you are really just trying to sell us on buying ink for our printers eh eh?! Didn't we get away from having to buy ink with the lame 2d printers?

[@TheRainHarvester]

We just design the print coloring to use gallon-size paint from home depot/Lowe's ! Cheap

[@orangegouice]

the marker hitting the gantry gave me an idea! you could set up a 4 marker system, and depending on the x and y coordinates, you could have a marker come out. not exactly sure how it could be setup, maybe hinges that bend the marker pointing down so that it doesnt make contact with the filament would work?

[@neofpo]

Have you tried holding the pens with a rubber so they have a more consistent pressure on the filament to see if this improves color consistency?

[@MintyVoid]

i am IN LOVE with this technique. Might become my go to once i start getting into 3d printing. I def wanna look into a way to use liquid ink instead of purchasing many markers lol.

[@sadie5637]

hey this is a tad late, but i’ve found that permanent BIC markers have much better coverage than sharpie and they fit in the same part!

[@imalexx]

It's sucks that KZbin won't let you like a video twice or more!! Thank you for that great video, I downloaded your files and modified it for the Artillery Sidewinder X1. I'll post it on myminifactory and thingyverse soon.

[@McNibbler]

How resilient are the pigments after they are printed. Do they wear or rub off, or are they pretty well infused?

[@chrisbutler9594]

This is very interesting, how does this work with sanding? I know the silky filaments loose their silk of you sand them.

[@gdfish3532]

I wonder if you could CNC the process of retracting and inserting markers for multicolour prints without purge blocks, ooze shields, excessive moves or expensive equipment.

[@dim1723]

Awesome so what about mixing filaments like that? Pla mixed with petg in places or abs with nylon? That pink filament with clear thrown in?

[@marklawrence9376]

Awesome Idea!! do the markers dry out at all? it seems like a long print will cause the markers to dry up. Just a thought.

[@veqv]

I wonder if this would work with scented markers or some high quality scented fountain ink.

[@rathburnscape6465]

So question, how did the art markers compare to the color sharpies? You touched on the fact of the different blacks/silver but not the other. Also follow up question how would Crayola markers fair?

[@ghostnebula6286]

If you create a mecanism to move the markers up and out of the colouring mechanism, then you can code it to add it back several 'steps' (or specific time) away from when it's needed and you could create a single peice that seemed to have been made with several diffrent coloured filament.

[@errorcode1249]

These vids need more views for the production quality

[@xx0124xx]

This is so cool. Can’t wait to see how the concept evolves!

[@JaySteve20]

Thats pretty cool. Where there any negatives to using markers, like extra cleanup or possible extruder damage?

[@BrianKimminau]

What comes to my mind is making your design's output less uniform -more randomized looking. I imagine making a rotating sharpie filament passthrough. Could probably get the rotation delivery from various methods. Gotta do it with a bowden as the majority of people who are getting into 3dp will have these for awhile. Design: My first thought is a rubber band used as a bike chain/belt which one side is connected to either the outside of the filament spool or the extruder. Belting to extruder seems riskier (don't want to screw with that during a print) but one could easily print a notched or maybe better a smooth channeled extruder knob which the chosen rubber band belt fits. Wrap one end of belt to this knob and somewhere between spool and extruder have the other end of the belt wrap around a second knob. The second knob would need to be able to rotate freely and still remain in a fixed location. Then atop this rotating but supported second knob you glue your sharpie passthrough. This might have cool effects?? And further remixing a rotating sharpie passthrough could entail gearing or maybe "rotational steps"/notches to maybe further reduce the uniformity of the sharpie coverage? Make color shifts more random? Use a motor to control rotation delivery? I think this might be desirable because people love seeing layer lines in gradual color changes? I've been wanting to get one of those gradual rainbow silky spools but there are like 2 spools that have color ranges that I like/would use. Oh yeah, I love your content brother! 10/10!