3D printing in full color (10 million colors) at 1200 DPI!!!

[s4nari]

 

 

Summary

3D Printing is no doubt an amazing technology, but the business of switching filiments for different colors results in additional complexity and cost and limits design posibilities. Company Mimaki has changed the game with the worlds first full-color 3D UV-curable inkjet printer. Additionally their solution to support scaffolding is revolutionary as well - with a soft encasement medium being used to support the object during printing. This medium is then able to be dissolved away in water after printing is complete. 

While their first machine is a large commercial unit, the technology is well ahead of other 3D printing tech. 

 

Quotes

Quote

Mimaki 3D printer [3DUJ-553] has achieved the full color modeling with the capability of world first (*1) over 10 million colors based on our developed technology of 2D inkjet printers of professionals use.
We will propose a new business utilizing [3DUJ-553] as its having rich color expression is better suited to create a final product such as real object sign or building model, of which an extra coloring has been difficult after the completion of modeling.

 

My thoughts

This really puts prototyping using 3D printing on the next level with the print being able to model design considerations for the finished product. The support material seems like it will enable complex print geometries without the need for the current complex support structures that must be then pruned/clipped off and then the resulting nubs smoothed with acetone. I get the sense that this will be a viable means of making consumer ready products using 3D printing instead of only being used for the prototyping stage. 

 

Sources

 Mimaki's product page: https://mimaki.com/special/3d_print/

 

Video from 3D Printing Nerd talking with a Mimaki rep at Formnext: 

 

[CTR640]

Only 10milion...? Bitch please, that's such outdated low tech. We already got HDR10+ with 1.07bilion colors.

[Radium_Angel]

180k$ for it (I presume not including inks or resin)

Not bad....

[sazrocks]

What makes this different from something like the Stratasys J750 that can do multicolor and multimaterial?

[WhitetailAni]

3 hours ago, CTR640 said:

We already got HDR10+ with 1.07bilion colors.

Where's your HDR10+ 3D printer?

[s4nari]

1 hour ago, sazrocks said:

What makes this different from something like the Stratasys J750 that can do multicolor and multimaterial?

Thanks for pointing this out! I wasn't aware that this tech had already been introduced by Stratasys. Looks to be the same capabilities.

[Doobeedoo]

Can't wait one day to DL schematic for X weapon and print it all colorful too.

[TVwazhere]

21 hours ago, s4nari said:

The support material seems like it will enable complex print geometries without the need for the current complex support structures that must be then pruned/clipped off and then the resulting nubs smoothed with acetone.

Two things about this statement. Firstly the ability to dissolve support structures in water has been around for a long time and can be done by sub $500 printers that simply have two nozzles; one for the main filament and one for the PVA filament which is water soluble. Secondly, acetone is only usable to vapor smooth ABS (and one other material I forget the name of). PLA and PETG, as well as PA (Nylon) are not vapor smoothable. 

 

That being said this is very cool technology and will likely one day trickle down to consumer levels of products (by one day I mean at least twenty years)