So I've been looking more into doing multi-materials with the DLP. If you rummage in the "General" section you can see a post titled "Interesting Readings" that has a nice paper from USC about multi-material printing with a DLP setup. What they've done there is use a rotating carousel for printing with multiple materials. They incorporate a couple other mechanisms in there to help with cleaning the build when going between materials, but that's the gist.
So one of the big things we don't have is the software to handle this. Just wanted to start the conversation about best practices for this. The team at USC wrote their own and its proprietary, I've tried to contact them and they have shown no interest in sharing info.
Thoughts?
Multi-material for DLP
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Multi-material for DLP
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Re: Multi-material for DLP
Yep it should be possible but it costs a lot in materials (for the carrousel) and in size. In order to use this with existing software, i would try with Slic3r. The software could create Gcode with a line for tool changing when you need to pause to change material.
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Re: Multi-material for DLP
Materials cost isn't that costly anymore thanks to access to MakerJuice, $45/L is not bad at all. Especially when the alternative is $75/L+...
And with the carousel (the one mentioned in the paper), you are only using a very small amount like you would in any bottom-up setup.
You can only use Slic3r to slice an SVG for one model, and even then you can't use any of the g-code it generates when slicing. You pretty much only specify the layer thickness and it slices accordingly ignoring most other parameters.
What you would need to do is merge two different sets of SVG's and then have the material change code (as well as the many other steps needed to prevent cross contamination) inserted.
But being code inept, I really don't know where to start...
And with the carousel (the one mentioned in the paper), you are only using a very small amount like you would in any bottom-up setup.
You can only use Slic3r to slice an SVG for one model, and even then you can't use any of the g-code it generates when slicing. You pretty much only specify the layer thickness and it slices accordingly ignoring most other parameters.
What you would need to do is merge two different sets of SVG's and then have the material change code (as well as the many other steps needed to prevent cross contamination) inserted.
But being code inept, I really don't know where to start...
@AndersonHTa
Re: Multi-material for DLP
This sounds like an interesting project...
I have been toying around with some of these ideas and it's definitely doable. One of the idea's I have been playing around with is to have a g-Code proxy.
Its basically a small app that reads the g-codes and forwards it to the correct piece of hardware. By doing this you can for example add more axes/stepper
motors with minimum effort. (there are limits to this method but none that can't be overcome or worked around.)
Are there any links or video's of these machines?
I have been toying around with some of these ideas and it's definitely doable. One of the idea's I have been playing around with is to have a g-Code proxy.
Its basically a small app that reads the g-codes and forwards it to the correct piece of hardware. By doing this you can for example add more axes/stepper
motors with minimum effort. (there are limits to this method but none that can't be overcome or worked around.)
Are there any links or video's of these machines?
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Re: Multi-material for DLP
I haven't been able to find a video of their multi-material setup. The paper I referenced can he found here,
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Re: Multi-material for DLP
Did you ever get anything like this working? I've been thinking about this concept a lot lately and have taken up a similar project. Oh, and I found a video of the carousel version of this from USC here: