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How Color 3D Printer Works

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How Color 3D Printer Works

How Color 3D Printer Works


Multicolor printing is a remarkable 3D printing technique, as it enables you to make your 3D file absolutely come to life with completely color. Today we will take a much more detailed check out this technology as well as see how the 3D printer takes care of "repainting" the model during the printing process.

Our multicolor material is perfect for visual designs that require greater than simply one color. Commonly, these are models you place on your desk or on a rack such as building models, figurines, artists, and also awards. Numerous individuals have asked us if these models were hand-painted after the printing process, and also were stunned to hear that the 3D printer itself did every one of the colorings. That's why we want to drop some light on the 3D printing process of this remarkable product.


Technology 

The technology behind our Multicolor product is known as ColorJet 3D printing. This technique builds up the design from a granular powder that is glued together-- layer by layer, bottom to top. The technology was first established at the Massachusetts Institute of Innovation (MIT) in 1993 and was known as ZPrinting. In 1995, Z Corporation got an exclusive license for the technology. Materialize has actually been considering this innovation that 2007.


The Base Material

Different from most house printers, ColorJet printers do not use filament. In fact, the 3D-printed parts are constructed from an extremely fine, granular sandstone powder. It is important to note that the powder utilized by 3D printers can not be just any sort of powder. Considering that it will be used for ultra-thin printing layers, the powder needs to be completely shaped to level. For rocks and marbles: you might easily put rocks on top of each other to build a pyramid. Nevertheless, developing a pyramid with marbles would be way more difficult, as the completely shaped spheres would fail to stay in place and your pyramid wouldn't stand a chance. Comparable to the marbles, the sandstone powder requires to have the ideal shape because each and every printing layer requires to have exactly the very same height-- even if we're discussing microns here.


The Printing Process

To develop your 3D print, the printer glues the powder together. So here's how it works: a super-thin layer of sandstone powder is spread out by a roller. And after that, the magic takes place: a print head places tiny drops of glue on the locations of the layer that become part of your design. The 3D printer will continue to expand one layer of powder after another, and the print head will systematically glue the correct areas of each layer together. However, where is the color?


The Coloring Process

The coloring of your model is done by combining four various pre-colored types of glue to match the colors that have actually been asked for. These glues will only be placed on the surfaces of the model, however, the interior parts will be glued together with clear glue.
The colored glue can naturally print in more than 4 colors. They can be combined and printed in up to 16.7 million various colors to be accurate. Similar to a routine 2D printer, the four base colors are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black), or CMYK for short.
CMYK works basically like a package of paints you used back in school. If you don't have the color of paint you're looking for, you need to mix 2 existing colors together. Adding colors together normally suggests that the brand-new color will be slightly darker (when you blend yellow and black, it follows that the resulting color simply can not be brighter than yellow). That's why this system is called a 'subtractive color model'.


After the Printing

One the printing is done, your model still isn't prepared to be shipped immediately. Initially, we require to remove the glued design from the box of un-glued powder and clean it carefully. Since it is still rather fragile it needs to be put in a bath of superglue to gain some strength. Next, it will be sprayed with a UV finishing to prevent de-coloration by sunlight. That's what we call our 'matte' surface.
You can go for a 'gloss' surface which is accomplished by using a thicker UV coating. This choice will offer your model a shinier surface area. In general, a gloss surface creates an item with more vibrant colors, but the colors of a matte object will not be as glossy.

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