There’s been a lot of talk in recent times about 3D printers. We have already seen how they can be used to print anything from food to guns and replacement body parts. What about the colour though? We aren’t going to be expected to start printing lasagne, Kalashnikovs and new ears in just one colour, are we?
Thankfully we aren’t. This is thanks to the new full colour 3-D printer which has just been revealed by Stratasys. This is the firm behind the MakerBot printer range and they say that the new model uses something called triple jetting technology.
What this means is that it uses droplets from three different base materials, which are then joined in the printing process. Basically, they use cyan, magenta and yellow to allow the user to choose from hundreds of different colours, just as it traditional in the rather dull world of 2D printing.
A Big Time Saver But Rather Expensive
The word from Statasys is that this could mean that it is a “significant time saver”, as it will avoid the need to make separate printing runs for different colours.
It’s not going to come cheap though, is it? No sir, it is not? It is going to cost you about £200,000 to get hold of this cutting edge printer which lets you print off 3D objects in full colour.
One example given of how the use of colour in 3D printing could help designers is that they could use colours to help point out the different stress factors which are important in a design. However, another point of view is that many designers won’t be too bothered about the colour in their prototypes and that many of them would be happy adding this in at a later stage in the process.
