The Palette 3D printer add on for multi-material printing.
We have witnessed a lot of attachments come to the 3D printing market, usually form the corners of crowdfunding sites or university labs like Printr's the Element or Spectrom, aiming to break the limitations of our current technology.
The latest add-on comes from Canadian 3D printing company, Mosaic Manufacturing, to enable simple multi-colour and multi material printing on your favourite open source desktop machine.
Developed by a team of electrical materials and mechatronics engineers, The Palette aims to turn your FFF 3D printer into a multi functional machine that allows printing with up to four colours or materials with different properties.
The Palette allows users to work with a range of exotic filaments with advanced properties such as conductive filaments, Carbon Fiber infused, Stainless Steel Infused and Woodfill. All four filament inputs are combined together in a single filament output and automatically extruded to ensure every colour is deposited exactly where it should be.
The Palette allows designers to communicate ideas more efficiently through colour.
The open-source device works with any 3D printer that runs on .gcode or .x3g and prints with non-proprietary 1.75mm filament. Users can also continue using their preferred modelling or slicer software to create their files which are then run through Mosaic’s application to generate the .SEEM file for The Palette.
To ensure the print runs smoothly, Mosaic has developed a feedback loop to ensure that The Palette makes the correct adjustments to the upcoming lengths of filament through a series of checkpoints.
With 22 days remaining, The Palette’s Kickstarter campaign has already smashed the $75,000 goal needed to send it into full-scale production. All of the Super Early Bird $599 pledge options have now gone but you can still join the hundreds of eager backers that have already backed the campaign and get your hands on The Palette for $849. The campaign will close on May 22nd and with $165,000 already in the pot, it looks set for success.
