Making Multi-material 3D Printed Control Panels

I create a lot of control panels for equipment in my shop using a dual-extruder 3D printer, with one color for the body of the panel and another for the markings. Today we're going to walk through the process of designing multi-material signs and panels and printing them on a multi-extruder 3D printer.

[@HanstheTraffer]

I was just thinking about my "Mechanical Drawing" class in High School back in 1968 and marveling at where technology has come in my adult lifetime.

[@boblewis5558]

We must be similar vintage as I was doing the same at the same time. Leading edge, quality, consumer audio designs such as from Gründig, B&O and others used such devices as BC108 (Silicon), OA91 (Germanium), etc. have progressed through countless evolutions of silicon and other materials to the inumerable, multitudinous range of devices we have today. I luckily ended up being a grad electronics engineer with a career in the IT industry from Engineer to Sales and even being exposed to bleeding edge tech for over 45 years it STILL utterly gobsmacks me what we can achieve today AND in many cases from the comfort (??) of our own domestic workshops. Long live engineering, ling live new tech!

[@otto-Z]

You can 3d print labels on a panel with a single extruder printer. I do it all the time. The technique I use produces a kind of pseudo inlaid appearance akin to injection molded parts. Print the panel face down and extrude the lettering just .2mm high. I use .1 mm layers for these, but you can go thicker if you want. 2 layers of .1mm helps to insure that the lettering will not have any voids in it. Specify a filament change at .3mm and you have the opportunity to examine the lettering layer before you change filament and commit to printing the remainder of the part. I use a Prusa Mk3 with the smooth PEI sheet and it works great. As always having a good first layer tune up will get you good results. When the layers after the lettering are laid down, the filament merges together and the resulting panel is very smooth with sharp lettering. I prefer black lettering in a white panel but the reverse is good too.

[@ProDesigneHd]

I don't get it. You print the panel face down, and you only change filament after the third layer. So basically the letters color around it are the same?

[@CraftedChannel]

@@ProDesigneHd Logically, he must be printing the letters at .1mm layers and the background color at .3. So the letters are low enough to come back in with the background without knocking them off. He's probably using Z-hop also. I posted remarks above because the only logic I saw missing in the video was using different printer settings, particularly lower squish for the white letters than the black background. I've not done it but would seem like an obvious next step in improving resolution.

[@boblewis5558]

@@ProDesigneHd not sure you understood what he was saying. As an example take printing a capital A. There clearly is black space in the top triangle which means that AFTER printing the letter A in white, the black filament will then need to be loaded and start from z0 again ONLY providing the surround and fill UP TO the second or third layer After that it can flood fill or matrix fill the rest as required. Having it face down (on glass especially) and closest to the heated bed means automatically giving the finished product a smooth, glassy top even with matt ABS or whatever. What I was referring to was rather than completely fill the back with opaque, black filament, filling OVER the lettering AFTER black filling into and around the letters would mean that IF the white filament was translucent enough, letters so covered (in white) would be easy to backlight with one or more LEDs. If black letters are wanted, just reverse the order of laying down filament. Multiple reel changes MAY be required. My question was answered anyway. YES it's possible to do this using a single feed printer just by implementing a reel change command. Cool!

[@EverettsWorkshop]

After I saw the previous video it was enjoyable to see how you made these panels. I was not aware of multiple-filament heads so this was very cool. Loved the 0-11 scale on the sample control, lol.

[@billstrahan4791]

Four wheels on the deadlift! Woot! Love your videos, keep being smart and strong!

[@bradleyabel9171]

Nice. Devin over at Make Anything has a video where he makes multiple color phone cases with a single extruder printer. I've used his technique to make pictures on tiles that I then applied to a lamp, but it would definitely work for this too. Essentially you have two prints. The one with the text goes first and you make it two layers. Then you change filament and do the second with a z hop that will take the extruder over the bits of the first print. It works really well. I had trouble keeping everything aligned at first depending on the print. My solution to that was to put a skirt in the model around everything (ie in Fusion) which I make part of the text print and the body print. Then when you center with the slicer it has the exact same outline to center. When changing the filament between the text and the body I carefully remove the text skirt to get it out of the way of the body skirt. You also want to disable any code that turns off your bed heater after the text print so everything stays stuck to the bed while you change your filament.

[@Cwmwd24]

Here's the link to Devin's method... kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYeVcp2vpNyLjpY

[@joecnc3341]

Thank You for the great tutorial!

[@cwgreen1938]

James, that was a very informative video. You are a great movie producer. I did not know that you were so strong. You lifted those 400# barbells like they were made out of plastic! I enjoyed it all.

[@royvermeulen2167]

And one more thing I'm one of your biggest fan you do a lot of thing I like i have seen most of your videos thank you for taking the time to make them a ton of information that helps me a lot

[@kristofpucejdl]

Great tutorial. Just a side note - you can extrude the text without exploding it first. It doesn't allow you to select individual letters but the whole textbox, but it is possible. Sometimes it can be useful not to extrude the text for easier editing :) And second, (while this is even more just listing the alternative, rather than saying that it's somehow preferred) when extruding the text infill inside the void, you can go for 'new body' instead of 'new component'. It seems like it corresponds better to the actual ideology of the part - you are in fact printing it as one component, it's not meant for assembly. But it still allows you to show/hide/export/color each of the bodies individually. Only when exporting to 3DP, you need to select the body, not the whole component. PS: I only just saw the DL at the end. Respect! :D

[@Dynaco77]

Great video

[@mgrantom]

Wow! Great video! I just learned a few things about Fusion 360 that I have struggled to understand on my own. I have been trying to figure out how to do something very similar and I think I should be able to do it now. Thanks for sharing!

[@mattw7949]

This video is brilliant. I wouldn't have figured this process out on my own.

[@notsonominal]

Another trick for mirroring stuff when referenced to the origin is to show the origin and use the axis for mirroring instead of creating a construction line.

[@ligius3]

I don't use F360 but I think there should be an easier way to cut text out: create the white body extrude, then do a boolean operation to subtract it from the panel. At least in OnShape you can define an offset, that means clearance. It's good trick for designing fitting cases as well. The panel will have the text cut out of it while the marking will remain as its own object.

[@rbyt2010]

Awesome :)

[@jamesbrewer3020]

Thanks again.

[@orange-micro-fiber9740]

30:16 Yes! Hydraulic press reference!

[@azyfloof]

Aaaand here we go!

[@leosarsam]

Awesome

[@CraftedChannel]

11? It should have went to ! ! ;-) Super video.

[@heeder777]

I only have a single filament printer but I make these from dual color black over white laminate plastic. Do the same process on Fusion but as an engraving. They are only 1/16 thick but it's the same method of marking used on Industrial panels. Many colors are available, I picked mine up on Amazon.

[@burningdinosaurs]

You crushed that dead-lift.

[@jackthomas2051]

A little post-processing (sanding) would clean it up perfectly.

[@CraftedChannel]

Some suggestions and questions from a 7k hour experienced mechanical ABS parts producer. I print in a naturally heated enclosure likely with less volume relative to build volume than you are using. Over he years I found resolution gains by increasing chamber temperatures (closing leaks, tossing a towel over the enclosures....) while decreasing extrusion temps yet retained outstanding layer adhesion. I print at 230 with 105 bed temp (more instances of warping failures as I decrease bed temp on larger objects). No ABS odor at 230 is a big bonus. I also was curious if you'd tested different squish settings between colors. I would guess (no experience with letters / dual or IDEX) that you'd want less squish on the white, and standard on the black. That you'd have to watch the white layer form to make sure nothing got knocked off of due to less than optimum squish setting for it's initial layer. And that you'd have to use or would benefit from Z hop here. There shouldn't ever be any color mixing if the hot ends are clean and your first layer is the white layer. I enjoyed you detailing your current state of he art here and defer to your infinitely greater testing experience. My increasing chamber temps experience has me aching for a build chamber with external steppers so I could push to 60 or 70c. I predict things would only get better and of course there are other materials which would benefit from such a capability. Future is Core then to Cro XY, everything else is a buggy whip!

[@icarossavvides2641]

Good video well presented and, if i may say so, refreshing to hear an American going metric! Hopefully you'll spark off a trend?🤣

[@tablatronix]

Could you sand the first (smush) layer off and polish it to get it a bit clearer maybe ? ( I know sanding pla is a pita )

[@CraftedChannel]

eheheheheh, Notice he's working in ABS. PLA is not an acceptable " long term " material for mechanical part for several reasons like melting in a super hot garage - in the sun - also the material creeps badly when under strain. The printer appears to be in an enclosure but it's probably too large for optimum ABS printing which would show as parts go larger. I love ABS but it really want's the warmest chamber you can come up with.

[@pecilijevelicanstveni4973]

@Clough42 Great! But (always that but :-) ) I think that you can emboss text (or any sketch) directly without any intervention. I am working in Autodesk Inventor and it has this tool. So, because this is the same company that wrote both software, I think that they keep all the tools in Fusion 360 like in Inventor. To emboss just do this: create text sketch on the surface, position it as needed, finish the sketch, use the emboss tool and decide if you want it to be recessed or raised. The rest is almost the same. There are a lot of videos on KZbin about it. (To constraint the text use the text outline and the points on it: midpoint, intersection etc. just like on other sketches).

[@TheRemo176]

Did you try to sand the labeled face ? Maybe that can help with defects and clarity

[@notsonominal]

You can dimmension the centered rectangle while creating it. Just key in 50, press TAB and key in 50 again while creating the rectangle. Works with most operations as well. Otherwise nice work!

[@timothymusson5040]

Nice flex to 11 at the end ;)

[@twentycentpiece]

That printer looks like it's done some work, that thing prints ABS better than my brand new printer.

[@bernardtarver]

There should be a provision to turn down the temp of the inactive extruder hotend; otherwise, the ooze shield doesn't help. In Slic3r, this known as Multiple Extruders > Temperature variation.

[@SlamminGraham]

LOL on the extra content shout-out to HPC!! lol

[@tablatronix]

Love the step through fusion, nice to see how other people work. I always forget construction lines, curious why you used them for the holes and not pattern like did in that other video? I will have to test that out, as it is something I do alot.

[@yanwo2359]

"... this goes to eleven." :) :)

[@TheRemo176]

Nice video. Do you try to do this with a single extruder printer by swapping the material manually?

[@trialnterror]

Could you show how you did the other panel? Or the dimensions you used for the d-sub plugs and the aviation plugs

[@Bluebrain]

You don't need to "explode text". You can also extrude in the "raw" text.

[@Clough42]

You can now. There was a time when you couldn't, or at least couldn't with certain fonts. This is an area that seems much better today than it once was.

[@Bluebrain]

@@Clough42 There is still a lot to do regarding text formatting in Fusion 360. e.g. I didn't find a way to stretch text non-uniform. Also aligning it isn't very easy.

[@BrilliantDesignOnline]

I am not sure whether I am more impressed by the whole tutorial, or by the 405 pounds! Totally 11.

[@BrilliantDesignOnline]

If your platform is really glass, take some steel wool to it and it will be just like new (steel is softer than glass, but will remove the junk; car windows too.)

[@Know-Way]

Awsomeness! Do you have the data-sheet for for that potentiometer? Is it rated to safely operate at 11? ;)

[@dwightcarlson7136]

Amazing skills you have. At my age of three score and ten it is probably too late to learn this. Keep up the great job you do of sharing your knowledge! Still working on converting my G0602 to VFD per your method. Would really love to be able to buy some of the components for the el feed screw drive from you. Will you be making them available for purchase?

[@boblewis5558]

NEVER too old to learn new stuff! Ignore the old dog tricks malarkey and remember ... OLD age and skullduggery beats youth and vigour every day of the week! BTW, I'm same age this year and STILL learning new stuff!

[@tobiasripper4124]

are those 3D printed or machined muscles? this man likes to upgrade his tools... all of them. hahaha nice one!

[@Clough42]

Ha! That's funny. I've been to the gym a few hundred times. :)

[@jrgenneess762]

@@Clough42 There are no easy way to get the outlook you have.

[@NathanielIten]

What about the servo vs stepper comparison? Are you still going to do a video on that?

[@Clough42]

I did some tests with both, and both work. After running the servo on the lathe for a while, I'm pretty happy with it. I haven't taken the time to go back and do a specific test. So many things to do. So little time...

[@NathanielIten]

@@Clough42 aight, thanks. Wishing you luck with your projects and a bit more free time.

[@mrmiz2547]

"These go to 11"

[@boblewis5558]

Awesome is right! As you were printing that it occurred to me that if you took the white all the way through or filled the back with white inside a black surround, it might make the ideal "soft" light highlighting of the text with back light LEDs. Suitable opaque (black, 2mm?) ribbing between different sections would allow different panel parts to have different, and potentially changing colours behind. I only have a single extruder on my printer currently but I am going to at least upgrade to dual nozzle in the future. Do you think that the same could be done with a single nozzle just by doing one colour then manually pausing for a reel change? Or is it likely that the material would cool too much in between reels? This is a great method to add to the existing "engrave through black (or other colour) anodising" to leave crisp bright aluminium text in a dark colour anodised panel that I first used around 40 years ago for an amp/preamp I built and it still looks as good today as when first made I'm binge watching your vids at present as your stuff is transfixing, practical, good looking, in-depth, very clear, detailed and DEFINITELY 11 on the Awesome scale ... Personally speaking you need a new panel with 12 on it! 👍👍👍😁♥️

[@Clough42]

You could also use transparent filament. That would be something interesting to try.

[@boblewis5558]

@@Clough42 absolutely! It just depends on how translucent the white and how soft a light effect you're after! 👍👍

[@jrgenneess762]

I have been thinking about this could it not bee possibly with one exitruder and to change filament I now read the notes I am not the first on planet in that direktion

[@Skraap]

That one goes to 11!

[@royvermeulen2167]

Hi I would like to know if you still have the plans for your 3d printer in this video or if you can make one thanks Roy

[@wolfganggosejacob779]

Nice (presentation) as always. Btw: what extruder combination do you use?

[@kjohnson042002]

Multi-material: ABS, PLA, TPU, PETG. Multi-color: Black and white ABS

[@chribzzz]

what do you use microsoft team's for?

[@tgirard123]

Hey James, Have you tried this with your iFast printer? If so, did you translate the Simplify settings to QIDI Print or, did you setup a profile in Simplify? I have the iFast and love it and would rather use it for this than my small, old replicator. I struggle with all the settings in QIDI Print.

[@tgirard123]

Actually, I was able to figure it out using QIDI Print. I just need to work on the tuning but it's able to print just like what you showed.

[@mururoa7024]

I was hoping to see a single extruder solution.

[@user_16309]

Is there a good duel extruded machine that’s under $1,000? Looks like these machines could be quite niche.

[@Clough42]

I built a dual-extruder machine many years ago. It kind of worked well enough to do what you see in this video. I've tried the QIDI i-Fast, and while it's better than the one I built, it still oozes and you have to get things just right to get a good result. I think the industry is moving toward either IDEX (multiple independent toolheads) or a single nozzle with a mechanism for swapping and purging the filament.

[@justinwalker8364]

Could you share your start gcode?

[@tinkerjar396]

hehe.. he measured his knob

[@OnCNCcom]

When you leg press 1600lbs in 3 sets of 15 get back to me. :)

[@Mr_Pewpy_But-Whole]

you dont need two nozzles for this technique

[@spaz13b]

Comment

[@greybeard3759]

Flatten your back and drop your hips a bit more, you'll handle heavy weights a lot better and safer. When I get stuck with 360 you can return the favor!

[@greybeard3759]

That's Fusion 360, not lbs. Did that 50 years ago

[@YankeeinSC1]

This is so bogus...everyone knows that the "AWESOME" scale only goes from 1 to 10...Seriously, I learned more new techniques watching here in 30 minutes and 53 seconds than I have about Fusion in a year.

[@sysghost]

My pots are better because they go all the way to 12.