"Now, the color is good, but we want to make it a must-have."

The turn of the century brought many changes. Although we are worried about Y2K vulnerabilities, our planes are still flying in the air, but technological advancements will witness the rise of the Internet and the subsequent rise of things such as social media and mobile applications. Buying music will be a thing of the past, just like our tendency to read such words in printed publications. It also coincides with the introduction of color 3D printing, which means that rapid prototyping makers will soon have an alternative method to build parts layer by layer in monochrome.

It was Z Corp that pioneered this particular movement. When the company was acquired by 3D Systems 12 years later, its color 3D printing technology enabled companies such as LAIKA to start applying color during the build process instead of painting parts in post-production. But Brian McLean, director of rapid prototyping at LAIKA, told TCT in 2018 that even when developing Paranorman (2012), they found that the color 3D printing technology was inconsistent from printing to printing. It's not just users who hold reservations about this technology. Eugene Giller, the chief technology officer of RIZE, worked as a senior research and development chemist at Z Corp from 2005 to 2010. He is also not satisfied with the quality of the parts output by Z Corp's color technology.

"I always think it should be a technology that can provide a full-featured color part, not just a form," the founder of RIZE told TCT. "For me, everything has to do with power."

Today, there are many companies that provide color 3D printers to the market, including RIZE, Stratasys, HP, and Mimaki. The latter launched the 3DUJ-553 platform capable of printing "over 10 million colors" in 2018, and launched a smaller format 3DUJ-2207 system in 2020. Its larger 3DUJ-553 machine has a build volume of 500 x 500 x 300 mm and uses an ultraviolet curing inkjet process to print parts in full color. White and transparent inks can also be mixed with colors to increase transparency, while water-soluble materials make post-processing time only a few minutes.

Dutch service provider Marketiger was one of the first users of Mimaki's color 3D printing technology. As of the end of 2019, the company produced as many as 20,000 custom figurines each year, but installed a second 3DUJ-553 in early 2020. With the machine's automatic cleaning sequence and queuing function, Marketiger can print a line within 72 hours without touching the printer, but usually insists on printing jobs overnight.

Due to the nature of its core business-custom figurines based on 3D scanning of the human body-the company's goal is 100% profitability. To ensure that everyone who scans themselves can get a 3D printed full-color model, Marketiger only starts manufacturing models after confirming the quality of the scan and editing the model. But once the Marketiger print button was pressed, it almost stopped.

"My company is built on this machine that runs 24/7," Marketiger Director Maikel de Wit told TCT at Formnext 2019. "It will cause some problems because it is a new technology, but we were able to make the utilization of this machine more than 80% on a 24/7 basis."

Obviously, color 3D printing has made great progress over the years. Due to the inaccuracy and assumed fragility of early color 3D printed parts, it is almost impossible to use Mimaki's technology to conduct business around this technology like Marketiger. However, the company that brings the technology to market knows that there is more work to be done.

Giller has always had this mentality. Part of the reason he founded RIZE was his dissatisfaction with the quality of the components of the Z Corp printer. However, he has always been confident in the potential of color 3D printing. When RIZE was launched, Giller's goal was to provide a printer that could run in any environment to provide full-color features that required minimal post-processing. His answer is XRIZE, which uses patented reinforcement material deposition technology to build parts by spraying a formulated release agent between layers of extruded material. Although the extrusion process allows the printing of carbon composite materials, the jetting aspect of the process can achieve voxel-level applications of full-color graphics.

For RIZE, the potential applications are not just prototyping and figurines. As we detailed in TCT Magazine Issue 29, Issue 2, multi-color medical models are the key to this technology, as are clamps and fixtures. For manufacturing assistance applications, the use of high-performance polymers and composite materials ensures that parts can withstand the tests of the factory floor, and colors can be used to indicate when parts need to be replaced, such as the manufacturing assistance diagram at the top of the page. These are just some of the ways that RIZE's customers use its full-color technology, and they don't hesitate to tell the Boston-based company how they can improve.

"They want new materials," Giller said. "That's why we worked very hard to introduce a new set of materials. They are very satisfied with [the current materials], but some customers do want to put parts in vehicles exposed to oil. They also require elastic materials."

Therefore, RIZE is working hard to add such products to the Rizium One, Rizium GF (glass-filled) and Rizium Carbon materials it already offers. Unsurprisingly, the company is not the only company building a color 3D printing product portfolio to meet growing customer demand.

Stratasys has done a good job in this regard. Now, it offers more than six full-color 3D printing systems in its J series product portfolio, some of which are specifically designed for the dental and medical markets. In June, it launched J55 Prime, a full-color system suitable for office use that can run quietly like a refrigerator (less than 53 DB), and a series of new functional materials. Despite the rich selection of machines, the expansion of material products is seen as the main way to cultivate the company's color printing products.

Consistent with J55 Prime, Stratasys has introduced Elastico Clear and Elastico Black rubber materials, Vero ContactClear translucent biocompatible materials for prolonging skin or body contact time, digital ABS Ivory for high-impact design, and the VeroUltra family. Other materials in the Stratasys color portfolio include the flexible VeroFlex and the versatile VeroVivid.

Yoram Reshef Photography Studio Photo: Yoram Reshef

With the advancement of the 3MF file format and the cooperation of Stratasys and KeyShot, the company is confident in its ability to provide any detail and beauty that a designer might want, but like RIZE, it is continuing to drive performance through continuous material development development of.

"In terms of mechanical performance, this is still ongoing," said Zehavit Reisin, Stratasys vice president and head of the ROW materials business and design department. "When we talked about PolyJet materials, it was about acrylic-based photopolymers. They behave differently from thermoplastics. If you put parts under stress, high temperature, and harsh environmental conditions, their thermal conditions or dimensional stability may Changes will occur, and this is where durability is questionable. This is where [there is a question mark] where PolyJet is used to make end-use parts. But we will continue to work hard to improve the material properties you see on the J series today, which means The color, transparency, mechanical and thermal properties can better withstand the required environmental conditions."

As color 3D printing has established itself in the medical and prototyping fields, other opportunities can now be seen. For surgeons or designers, the benefits of color 3D printing are obvious, but in other markets, adoption is slower. This may not be a problem, because there will always be medical procedures that need to be performed, parts need to be designed and redesigned, but in this industry, there is always a desire to push boundaries. Giller is optimistic about the development impact of full-color 3D printing.

"In my opinion, we all have color TVs, and no one wants to go back to black and white," Giller said. "But I'm old enough. I do have a black and white TV. I remember someone saying,'I don't need color, TV is an art'. Now, no one thinks like that. If we can reduce it to [more Low] price point, I think people will get used to color printing. Now, the color is good, but we want to make it a must-have."

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