In previous videos I showed you how to make multicolor signs like this or even
my Filament Friday sign, using a single nozzle printer and simplify 3d. Today I'm
going to show you how I took these four colors made a multicolor CHEP cube using
a single nozzle Ender 3 and a single file produced in Cura. I'll show you how
to do it on today's Filament Friday. This week's episode is brought to you by
these patreon supporters. Here's my CHEP cube brought into Cura version
3.6. I've sliced it and then here's the layer view. And you can see there's a
hundred layers and what I want to do is print the first color up to layer 25. And
then I want to print the next color from 25 up to layer 50. And then from layer 50
on new color up to layer 75. And then a final color from 75 on up to layer 100.
This is how I'm going to control this in Cura. I come up here to Extensions>
post-processing> modify g-code and what this does is allow me to make a series
of scripts. One of the scripts is pause at height. Now that height doesn't have
to be a dimension, I can select to pause at a layer number. So I select layer
number from the drop-down menu and choose 25 for my layer number. Now I
want to move out of the way so I set an X position of 20. Y position of 20. Now
for retraction, I'm gonna set this at 25. I want it to pull the filament out while
the nozzle is still hot and do it pretty quickly. That way I can come back while
this thing is cold and get that filament out of there. I want to redo the last
layer so the two merge together and then while it's waiting for me, cool
down to 25 degrees C. Now I add another script. Again another pause at height. Select
layer number. Only this time I'm going to go 50 instead of 25. Everything else is
the same. Including retracting that filament, so I could easily remove it. And
then the last layer reprinted. I add a third one to stop the layer height of 75.
All the same settings. So now I'll have three pause at height 25 50 and 75
that'll allow me to change the filament. Now once you do this, this little wrench
symbol shows up next to prepare. You can click on that and go back right
to them rather than go through that menu and modify if you need to. Now we click
on prepare this will re-slice the file and add those scripts to the g-code. So let's
save this file and then we'll take a look at the G code in a text editor. It's
all you need, just a simple text editor. I'll use define to find a layer 25 and
here it is, so I'm not going to go through all this but there's the pause command.
There's the set temperature to 25 degrees C. And there's the position to
the X&Y. But let's just do this. So I'm gonna pop
this SD card in. I load up some blue Filament Friday Filament, and then I go
to the menu and I select print from SD card. Find the file click on it. And it's
gonna print just like any other file. I gotta wait for it to heat up and then
it'll start printing. So here it is all heated up it's gonna start laying down
the first layer. It lays down a skirt for me first and then it'll start printing
the base of the CHEP cube. And once it finishes the twenty-fifth layer it's
gonna pause.It'll move to that 20/20 position and there's the first layer,
twenty-five layers high. And you can see it's telling me it's waiting for the
user so I could take forever. So the nozzle can be cold but because I
retracted that filament way up, I can still pull this out. It's not stuck in
the hot end and then I could just load up the new filament while this thing is
still waiting. And the hot end is still at like 25 degrees C so I feed in my
next color and I just slide it in into the extruder through the Bowden tube all
the way down to the nozzle. Now of course the nozzles gonna have some blue
filament still in it, so I need to heat it up for that. So all I need to do is go
back to the menu click on the button let it know I'm ready. Click on the info
screen and now you can see it's set to 205. It's gonna start heating up the hot
end. Well what I can do is while I'm waiting I can wait until it gets to
about 170 or 180 degrees and I can just start cranking out the orange until the
blue changes to orange. So then I get the proper color, just get rid of that little
excess, and then let this thing finish heating up. And when it hits the 205
degrees C it's going to start printing. Only now it's going to print orange on
the next layer. So it does it's orange bit. Now It's that layer 50. Does the same
thing moves to the side and I go through the same steps.
Only this time I'm gonna load white. Push it all
the way in. Hit the button to tell I'm ready. Info screen. It's gonna heat up. I twist
out a little more, wait until the orange is gone. And pull that out of the way. It
heats up and then it'll start printing the white. And there you can see in a
kind of a time-lapse it's printing the white on top of the orange on top of the
blue. Now I'm gonna finish it up with some proto-pasta CHEP candy apple red.
This is a little different filament so you can see I'm getting the little blobs
on the side. And of course those blobs aren't wanted but they actually break
off pretty easy. And overall this print looks decent. The
colors bonded together pretty good. I've got pretty straight edges. So overall it
did a good job of positioning between each layer. So now let's look at a
close-up of this. And I took those little blobs off you can see they're gone from
that corner right there. But I am getting some sagging in the red on top, but
overall this isn't a bad print. I wouldn't say it's the best quality print
I've ever done, but you can see the bonding is really really good. So this is
how you can make multicolor prints using Cura. So clearly this wasn't the best
quality print to show this feature but printing small like this in multiple
colors is sometimes harder than making a big sign like this. Those blobs that
showed up in the corner would be over here and you wouldn't even notice them.
But printing different materials is also a factor.
I've got Filament Friday Filament on three of them but proto-pasta HT PLA
on the top. This is the CHEP candy apple red that I inspired for proto-pasta. But
it clearly needs different temp settings than the other three. That's why I got
sagging at the different letters. The point is I showed you how to make
multiple processes in Cura. So the machine will wait for you to come change
the filament not you standing over it ready to hit pause and then change the
filament. So I think it's a handy feature to know how to use in Cura. I've got some
mail I got to get to. It's been sitting here and so Nick Lonzisero, you got
some stickers coming. Noah Diamond you got some Filament Friday stickers coming.
Dusek and Powell custom builders, thank you so much for the $25 Amazon
gift card. Its gonna buy me some filament. I appreciate it. And you get some
stickers coming. And Paul Cumber, thanks for the card. You've got some stickers
coming too. So that's it for this week. If you like what I'm doing here, maybe check
out some of these videos that are popping up. If you want to help support
the channel, patreon is one way to do it, or just buy through the affiliate links
in the description below. It all helps a lot. And if nothing else,
click on that CHEP logo and subscribe. That's it for this week. I hope you
enjoyed it. I'll see you next time right here at Filament Friday