ZMorph upgraded its two-material extruder, which now offers four novel options for 3D printing, and one not seen before on the market. The Dual Pro Plastic Extruder can 3D print with two materials using only a single nozzle, opening up exciting possibilities regarding dual materials, color mixing, image mapping and water soluble supports.
The Dual Pro is one of six interchangeable extruders for the ZMorph 2.0 SX multitool 3D printer, that includes a milling tool, laser toolhead, and other extruders for varying material thickness. Supported by updates to ZMorph’s original Voxelizer software, and quite different to anything else currently on the market, we take a closer look at the different ways ZMorph’s most powerful tool to date can be used.
One nozzle instead of two
While there are desktop 3D printers that can use multiple materials in the same print run, these often rely upon two nozzles rather than one. The novel approach taken by ZMorph means that users can now work with shaded colours and also map images onto their prints, to create unique and dazzling 3D prints that aren’t typically seen from a desktop 3D printer.
Color Mixing
The shaded prints are particularly impressive as the technique creates the impression of added depth on a print (as shown above). The prints are made possible by ZMorph’s Voxelizer software and a mixer in the toolhead that blends the two different coloured filaments. Voxelizer allows the user to select which part of the design should be a certain color or shade, and the printer does the rest. The Voxelizer software can also be used to preview prints without needing to generate G-code.
Image Mapping
Another possibility with ZMorph’s technology is that images can be printed directly onto a 3D design pixel-by-pixel. This be done using any .jpeg, photograph or graphical pattern, as shown in the photo above.
Printing PLA and PVA together
Furthermore, the Dual Pro Plastic Extruder can print both PLA and water-soluble PVA for supports. This means a design can be printed with soluble supports that can be washed away with water, eliminating some of the laborious post-processing found in FFF prints. Additional geometric complexity is also possible with multi-materials, which can be seen in the video below.
More information about the Dual Pro Plastic Extruder can be found here on ZMorph’s website.
Featured image of prints from the ZMorph 2.0 SX Multitool 3D Printer using the Dual Pro Extruder. Image via ZMorph.
Ovais Hussain Qureshi
3Dတစ္ကြက္ေကာင္ေလးတင္ေပးပါအံုးဆရာ
ok