Multi-Material 3D Printing With a Desktop 3D Printer

At Metalworks, we’re keen pushing the boundaries of desktop 3D printing despite hardware limitations. Fancy printing your 3D creations with multiple materials (a feature reserved for higher end 3D printers such as the OBJET500 CONNEX3)?

We have to agree that even though 3D printing has been around for a while, there has to be significant improvement and development in the field to make it comparable to production processes, i.e injection molding. Primary product prototyping can be achieved by desktop 3D printers, but sometimes to convey concepts, there are requirements for designers to have multi-material possibilities. The way that can be achieved is to get an expensive printer, or you can be ‘Creative’. Most of the desktop printers available in the market uses FDM (Fused Deposition modelling), meaning it prints in layers. This fact can be used at an advantage if the design can made keeping this in mind. Various kind of effect can be achieved. For me, I wanted to communicate different materials denoting different material strengths and materials which cannot be extruded by 3D printing. The white denotes a hard polycarbonate shell, the black is a hard rubber material, and the transparent both communicates transparency and a use of a flexible resin material. We have been using a Replicator 2 for all the prints, without any modifications, cost, or extra time it was able to produce the prototypes.

The way to do it is:

• modelling the product keeping in mind the FDMselect materials/ colors based on a logical sequence
• divide the print into parts and arranging them one on top of the other in the slicerprint one part on top of the other and change the material
• the other alternative is change the filament while the whole model is being printed (be warned it requires patience, and some practice)

The key to mastering the printing technique and using it creatively is knowledge and experience.

Credit: Soumo Karar, Industrial Designer at Metalworks by Maxus