Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.  

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

Depending on how they write the program you might be able to change out inactive colors or types of filament to a new or different role. Wish they would come out with a video on how colors are identified in setup and if you can make changes.
In this case you would have unlimited color capability, you would just have to change out filament at the right moments.

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

People have done exactly this with the Palette+ and it works (mostly). IMHO it's more of a gee-whiz trick than a practical technique, just because it's a pain to keep track of when you need to perform color changes.

Another thought, though, is that the MMU2 design lends itself well to adding more colors. You don't need any new steppers, just some modifications to the existing (mostly 3D printed) parts. So it's very possible that if the MMU2 works well, we might see a version that supports more filaments.

There is a practical limit, however. At some point, if you have too many color changes in the same layer the purge tower will take up most of the print area. And you know that if Prusa makes an MMU that can handle 20 different filaments, someone is going to try to print a model with 20 colors in one layer. And then complain that there's no room left for the print.

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

The M600 code works with MMU1; there doesn't seem to be a reason why it would not work with the MMU2.

Peter

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

I'm not sure if it's possible, but the easiest solution to me would be to Stack a Second MMU 2.0 and have a dual feed to the Extruder. This would provide 10 colors or types of materials.
I don't know if this is possible with one MMU 2.0 let alone two, but if you designate more than one slot with the same color for a long project you wouldn't run out of filament.

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

The quirkiest way would be to simply feed one of 5 filaments from one MMU 2.0 to a single filament input on another MMU 2.0 (-:

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

"The quirkiest way would be to simply feed one of 5 filaments from one MMU 2.0 to a single filament input on another MMU 2.0 (-:"

that sir... would open a paradox in space time. and in the config file 😀

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

Can't link from work, but a quote from Jo himself on his instragram:

@shadokyn you can still change colors mid-print, so technically you can print with even more colors than 5. Five is the maximum number of colors in the same layer 🙂

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

Won't swear to this but it seems I remember someone saying you could, in effect, daisy chain the MMU2 to print that way. Seems like it was a JP video.

Neal

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

Can't link from work, but a quote from Jo himself on his instragram:

@shadokyn you can still change colors mid-print, so technically you can print with even more colors than 5. Five is the maximum number of colors in the same layer 🙂

So (for MMU1 and therefore MMU2), M600 will only work with the filament currently printing. So the last sentence of that answer is obviously incorrect. You can issue an M600 any number of times on a single layer.

Peter

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

Daisy-chaining MMU's would be pretty complicated - imagine the software implications!

But the MMU 2 design looks like it could be extended to any number of colors. Of course, at some point it'd be absurd - you can't really print with 20 colors at once, because, as someone else noted, you'd spend all your material/time purging between color changes, and no time printing.

But I suppose it might be useful if you had lots of different materials loaded all the time, so you could switch colors/materials via the MMU instead of unloading and loading the printer manually. Imagine if you always had a couple of colors of PLA, and PETG, plus Nylon and TPU, so you could mix and match in the slicer. Not sure it's worth the complexity/cost, though.

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

I have been making 'Pride' merchandise, six colours would be peachy...
but it's just out of reach! 🙁

when I get my MMU I will have to play with M600...
Joan

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

You can also use the same MMU input for different colors. Just assume you need some yellow dots at the bottom layers and some red dots later at the top layers. You could exchange yellow and red at some point during the print. In the slicer it would be the same color (MMU input).

Re: Wondering if its possible to print more than 5 colors.

You can also use the same MMU input for different colors. Just assume you need some yellow dots at the bottom layers and some red dots later at the top layers. You could exchange yellow and red at some point during the print. In the slicer it would be the same color (MMU input).

Yellow is highly susceptible to colour bleed; red is not. So when slicing you would have to use a "worst case" tower which would be extremely wasteful 🙁

Peter