Polyjet Full Color 3D Printing

Current State of Color 3D Printing

Before we dive in, let's discuss the current state of the color 3D printing market. While there are multiple full color 3D printers currently on the market, the Projet 660 has largely remained the industry standard. While there are a few nuances, the 2 main reasons it has remained on top are it’s resolution and material cost when compared with competing full-color 3D printers. 

Despite all of this, the Projet 660 still leaves a lot to be desired with regards to reliability, quality, consistency and material cost- all things that we hope to see this latest generation of color 3D printers improve upon.

Major changes are afoot in the color 3D printing market with multiple new technologies expected to become widely available this year. A quick rundown on everything that is happening: HP is expected to launch their new color 3D printer; and additional software updates are expected to come to the Stratasys J750 color 3D printer that will help enhance color quality.

1.Stratasys J750 color 3D printer 

The Stratasys J750 color 3D printer uses a polyjet 3D printing process, similar to the Mimaki color 3D printer. The polyjet printing process consists of resin that is jetted out of ink heads and then later cured by UV light to harden it. One downside of the polyjetting approach with resin is the need for support material which typically increases the cost of printing and can sometimes prove difficult to remove

Machine and Material Cost

The Stratasys is rumored to cost between $300k and $400k and has a material cost that is 60% more expensive than the Mimaki 3DUJ-553.

Specs

2. HP Jet Fusion 580

As the name implies, the HP Jet Fusion 580 uses a multi jet fusion process to 3D print. Multi jet fusion works by first spreading a thin layer of power over a bed. Inkjet nozzles then pass over the power and release agents (to both fuse and prevent from fusing) on different parts of the powder bed. Next, a high energy IR source passes over the power to sinter the powder together. The process repeats many times until a full 3D object is created. Once complete the unsintered powder is recycled to use in another print build.

Price

We still don’t have full details on what the color version of the HP Jet Fusion 580 will cost, but past press articles have mentioned ~$100k. As for materials, it is still anyone’s guess until HP releases their new color 3D printer.

Specs

The current monochrome HP Jet Fusion 580’s specs are:

3. Galaxy3DM Mix Color FDM 3D Printer

It is featured by its low machine cost, about 1k. 

With this low cost, this machine can be adopted to print 2 different color of 3D models.