Anyone have any experience with a 3in1 out printer hotend?
And brand recommendations you have tried?
Was it hard to set up?
Was thier any problems with squeeze out in other tubes?
I know that @jameslancaster has one of those. He brought it to the makerspace once and did some printing. It was pretty interesting.
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Yes. I have a Diamond hotend which works pretty well, if you want a particular color, you need to have a purge tower (Or in most cases use infill first.)
Diamond is the original.
Yes, kinda a pain to setup, and slice.
No problem with backflow.
Two ways you can use it, either specifying particular color mixes for a color (so virtual extruders, E0 may be B, E1-Y, E2-R, E3-G, E4-P, and so on.) You kinda need filament that mixes well, and translucent filaments seem to do a lot better. Otherwise, it has some of the same sort of problems of early mixing nozzles, where you can get it kinda looking more like a two-color toothpaste. Or specifying a ratio in the gcode.
Marlin is supposed to have better color mixing now, but I’ve stuck to what’s worked since it’s been a pain.
Setting up models is more complicated. I have generally used Repetier-Host, because it has had the best (but not great) support.) Slic3r I think has gotten better, but I haven’t tried that for it in a while.
It does have limitations like inability to make it lighter/darker, you’d need a 5 color mixer for that. (+White/Black) CMY is recommended. I do find that RGB works. Biggest thing is it depends a ton on the filament if it looks good or bad.
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Thx James! Great information.
I appreciate it!
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