this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I wonder if a slicer could hide the transitioning color inside the print instead of making a separate purge tower. I don't know that the cause of the filament popping is, but maybe that could be minimized like this too?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

The Bambu slicer does offer such a thing, the results vary depending on the colors in question though, if the color it's purging is black, and most of the print is white, then the black that gets flushed into the infill is going to be pretty visible under the white outer walls. This can be mitigated by thicker walls, and ofc its less of an issue when dealing with colors of different, but similar, shades

I've found that the best way to reduce multicolor waste is to try and setup your model in the first place so that it uses the smallest number of color changes possible, but ofc whether or not you have much control over that will depend largely on the model in question

[–] ThePantser 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

What would be nice would be a way the waste can be used to print something else like a functional part that colors won't matter.

[–] Carighan 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah like during the infill portion of each layer, swap the color. But I can only see that work if each layer is a separate color.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

If you have different parts of the same layer, you could jump back and forth to the infill to purge. But you'd need to make sure you have enough inside volume compared to the outside surface area.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mosaic, the Palette company, have that as a feature in their slicer and I've heard Prusa Slicer was working on it a while back.

[–] Johnvanjim 3 points 1 year ago

Prusa Slicer does have a "Purge to Infill" option that removes a lot of this waste. Unfortunately, Bambu printers are infamous for their poop problems..

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Not sure what's the current state of other slicers. but PrusaSlicer has a setting that does exactly that, called 'Wipe object'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As others have said few slicers support printing a second model as the wipe/purge object, but Stefan from CNC Kitchen happens to be one of the few people on earth that owns a filament recycling setup so these poops might get recycled as well.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That would involve remelting the filament and re-extruding, which can be bad for strength. Maybe you could print the functional print at the same time and use it as the purge tower?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That's not a bad idea if you have a part big enough to print and space on the bed for both. I'm curious how strong the print would be if it's made up of a bunch of partial lines. It would be like multiple failure points per layer. But if the part doesn't need that much strength, it would be convenient.