Permanent Marker Coloured Filament

I was reading the latest Make magazine and there was an odd idea that works on page 77. I am wondering if anyone else has done this. Take clear filament and paint it with a permanent marker to make different colours. They have some proof of concepts where they made rainbow coloured parts. I have also seen printers that state how long of each plastic and will cut the plastic to length, in more a concept that anything.

Has anyone done this with permanent marker?

The idea is a bowden tube with a small chamber at the end. Permanent makers would colour the filament as it passes by with different servo motors and colours.

Another idea is to have an inkjet head set that spray ink onto the filament that passes through the nozzle.

Is this too crazy an idea? The bowden tube length would need to be accurately known, or more specifically the filament distance between the ink source and the nozzle tip. It would lose a lot of plastic purging the tube of old plastic.

When calibrating my extruder, I took a sharpie and marked my white PLA filament at regular intervals so that I could watch it move through the bowden & see whenever the gears slipped.

I was printing a 40x40x40mm cube, and it was easy to see which sections had sharpie applied (those layers looked purple) and which didn't, and during transitions, I don't think there was more than 1 layer colored somewhere in-between. But I didn't do any real testing besides that.

So the idea is definitely feasible, but I suspect you'll be quite limited in terms of resolution / sharp color changes. You'll probably need some more potent dyes if you want to print vibrant colors. I would recommend you use 1.75mm filament instead of 3mm filament if you try this permanent marker setup, as that will give you more surface area per volume to apply the marker.

I think your biggest issue will be that markers have a tendency to dry out fairly rapidly when exposed to air. I'm not sure how you would combat that. Perhaps you can trace down the source of that article & ask them about that?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2014 02:08AM by wallacoloo.

Here are a few links

[makezine.com]

[3dprint.com]

I remember someone made a devise to hold like 3 or 4 pens and they could be changed out mid print to make different colors if I remember right.

Just checked and there are several Sharpie holders to color filament on Thingiverse. One holds 4 pens and colors on all sides so they would probably be more saturated colors.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2014 10:58PM by tmorris9.