Full-color 3D printer

I have worked for a Polish 3D printing startup OVE on the development of full-color 3D printer. The device was using the most popular fused filament fabrication (FFF) method for printing the object and inkjet waterfall head from Memjet, an USA-based provider of industrial inkjet solutions.

The idea behind was simple – the layers of plastic and color are printed one after the other. Of course this required totally new mechanical construction – with working table moving between 3D and color heads. Additionally to the new mechanics, the software for controlling the process was custom – because it had to generate the color prints for each layer, basing on the texture of the object.

In this project, I was responsible for the software development team and for implementing parts of the controlling module as well as the algorithm for generating color slices.

Some images from press release.

A short video showing the print process: 3D layer -> move under Memjet head -> color print -> move back to 3D print.