I've done a number of these with lithophane maker + Palette. It always amazes the people I make them for. I first did it back in 2019 where Jason put out a call on Twitter: if you supplied how much filament you needed, he would provide special filament. I was apparently the only person who took him up on the offer. The special filament was TruBlend PLA in cyan, magenta, and yellow. It was made for a Kickstarter printer that was supposed to do full color prints using a filament mixing hot end. The Kickstarter, like many mixing hot ends, didn't pan out. But the filament remained... but only so much. Luckily David from Printed Solid was in discussion with Jason at that time (2019) to make the filaments. While the Cyan and Magenta needed to be created, the existing Yellow filament PS had was good enough. One thing you didn't mention (or wasn't mentioned) is that the white is actually special too. It's called Quarter White because it's normal white filament with 1/4th the amount of pigment added. It makes the filament less opaque and thus more light gets through and you get better color results.
@@CNCKitchen Damn, wish I had read all the comments before ordering filament last night! Looks like I will have to try and find quarter white somewhere.
would like to try this can you do it on an Ender 3 pro. If so do you have to change filament a lot or can it print all one color then change filament and do the whole other color and then change one more time for the third color. Or would you have to change the film excessive around times. If I can do this on my Ender 3 that would be awesome. Can someone provide a link where to get the three colors and the special White.
@@jamesl197999 You can do it on any FDM printer with manual filament swaps. It's ~15 swaps and depending on the image size, it could be a few minutes between swaps. The particular colors are at Printed Solid: Jessie Yellow Bird, Pure Cyan, Pure Magenta, and Quarter White
dude literally used chroma subsampling (lower resolution on color than on brightness), on 3D printing, and made a sort-of S-Video signal by printing them both half-separately (I mean same print but not on the same layer). When there's a will, there's a way.
I'm just a few weeks ago I was messing around with little things, amazed at how well they worked through 3D printing. What a coincidence that this pops up showing how to blow my mind even more!
This guy has been at MRRF for a couple of years at least, but last I saw him, he was a bit coy with how to produce the effect. He wanted to build some software and sell it or something. Glad to see it's widely available now.
Neat technique, I'm just wondering what applications this would have that you couldn't do way easier with an inkjet printer on transparency film. Resolution would be higher too.
One interesting thought could be to make art accessible for people with low or no vision whilst also letting people with vision see the picture. I don't really know if this would work however, since the hight differences of the lithophanes might be too subtile to really make out an image by feeling with your fingers.
I made a moon that uses this technique for black/white/grey…as the technique evolves I can see it moving into 3D space and more than just color globes, I think it’s smart…
Was thinking exactly the same. A lot of plastic and Ressources wasted to mimic a low res color copy on transparent paper. Different thing with an actual moon lithosphere. It's a sphere and not a plane and it's a black and white object. So an ideal fit for 3D printing a moon-lamp with white filament. But transparent 2D color images? Man...
Looks really nice, thanks for bringing this to our attention. BTW the multi extruders/m600 works great on any printer. It is just tedious and you need to study the print preview for knowing which filament to load next.
Very interesting method! Thanks for sharing and also for posting these MRRF2022 wrap-up videos -- they are really great for those of us who weren't able to attend!
This was definitely fascinating to look at at MRRF. The image is sharper than if the image was color copied and put behind the lithophane. Very impressive.
If I were to do that, I’d print the colored image in an acetate using a regular inkjet or colored laser jet printer instead. Then put a “cover” Lithopane on top.
Hi Stefan, just a reminder. The 1000g 3DJake spools don't work with the BambuLab AMS, they are too wide! The 250g also don't work, they are too small. I ordered 1000g spools to try this out and failed.
I walked by that table at MRRF and did not stop because I thought it was the standard lithphane with a color picture behind it. My fault for not being more observant.
In Cura I have created a dual-extruder Ender 3 V2 where the extruder-change G-code is just „M600“. This works perfectly - as you suggested! I have used this to print some simple multi-colored prints.
I did the same in prusa slicer. Works well if you only need a few filament changes. Also it will start the next layer with the color already loaded, so one change less! I used it to print key caps with labels upside down to have a smooth surface.
How did you create the multi-extruder Ender 3 Cura machine definition? I've been trying to figure out how to create the multi-extruder definition in a way that will still allow me to import Ender 3 print profiles, but the "Custom FFF" definition has different default profiles, and if I use the Ender 3 one then I can't add multiple extruders... :/
@@zombieofthepast Prepare Workspace > Printers Dropdown > Manage Printers > Machine Settings > Printer [Printhead Settings] - Number of Extruders 4 > Extruder 1 Workspace [Extruder End G-code] M600 > Extruder 2 Workspace [Extruder End G-code] M600 > Repeat for Extruder 3 and Extruder 4 > Click-off the text box so it actually saves the Gcode text you just typed in > Close "Machine Settings" You will now notice on the right that your Print Settings now has four columns for Extruder 1, Extruder 2, Extruder 3,and Extruder 4 - as indicated by the (1), (2), (3), and (4) icons respectively. Adjust your Extruder 2, 3 and 4 settings to the secondary filaments you will print your dual extrusion with (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow). Personally, I just copy and pasted the settings from Extruder 1 to Extruder 2 because my printer has pretty consistent print quality for almost any PLA. Also, you may want to make the following 3 Nozzle temperatures for each of the extruders the same if you want to minimize stall time -> which can lead to zits/globs: - Printing Temperature - Initial Printing Temperature - Final Printing Temperature ^ These 3 settings can affect your M104 (Set Hotend Temperature) and M109 (Wait for Hotend Temperature). Ideally, you do NOT want have to wait for your nozzle to reheat from the Waiting Hotend Temperature to the Printing Hotend Temperature after a filament change - especially if your nozzle is hovering just-over your print with filament oozing-out. If those 3 settings are the same temperature, there SHOULD be no wait time in theory. Even better, you may want to consider modifying those settings such that the Waiting Hotend Temperature is 1º higher than the Printing Hotend Temperature so it will start right away. ======= ALSO, some key settings to modify can be found within the NEW Dual Extrusion section in the Print Settings menu: - Enable Prime Tower (if you want to use a prime tower) and other respective settings - Enable Ooze Shield - Nozzle Switch Retraction Distance -> SUPER IMPORTANT; mine was defaulted to (+)16.0mm and would leave HUGE globs after the Filament Change and start of the new layer; (+)50.0mm left an even bigger glob; (-)2.0mm left a noticeable glob as well; IN THE END, I changed mine to (+)2.0mm which worked for me - Nozzle Switch Retraction Speed to match that of your extruder. I have an Orbiter v2.0, so mine is 120.0mm/s; yours will probably be lower -Nozzle Switch Extra Prime Amount
I saw Jason's early work years back at a prior MRRF before he was able to get the tools made. It was an amazing effort and the results were great even back then. It's so neat to see this kind of thing in person and I'm tempted to try making one using a single nozzle. Nice work on describing the process!
Printed solid has the pure cyan and magenta filaments, which one should I get for yellow? There is bird yellow and neon yellow on the site but not pure yellow.
How about a white layer with translucent cmyk layers on top to make a regular image without having to put light thru it? Process: 1. Define cmyk levels into various amounts of translucent layers of c, m, y, k. Maximum of layers per primary color is up to the user and a formula can split it i to gradients based on max layer count 1. All-white layer 2. For each of cmyk, each layer of each color either gets its own set of layers (so each layer only has 2 filaments: primary color and fully transparent 3. For each primary color, print the amount of layers that are necessary for its intensity per pixel, printing transparent for layers whose intensity no longer require another translucent cmyk layer If you wanna use an ams: 1. then for each pixel, stack up the necessary amount of layers for each primary color, each pixel starting at layer 2 2. Determine the pixel that uses the most amount of total layers. All other shorter pixels will be padded by transparent pixels on top, so the final result is flat. This is optional in case you dont need a flat top I can definitely code an algorithm to do this
why? it would be way more time efficient & energy efficient to regular print onto OHP sheets. yes it's technically impressive but a massive case of just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Ironically... you now created a very expensive hard to use normal printer... Granted.. its really really cool. By the way, having higher luminanance resolution than collor is used in a lot of image compression software.
Can you explain why you say that there are 16 filament changes necessary if printed with only one extruder? Shouldn't it be only 12 if the first layer is white followed by 5 colours plus white again? And why 5 colour layers and not 4? What's the point of the fifth?
OK, but at this point, why not just print a regular picture on paper? Monochrome lithophanes have a unique aesthetic, but if you just make them look like photos, what's the point? It's a cool tech demo, but I don't see much value beyond that.
hi! i would like to know if you maybe know about more sites that i can order these colors. unfortunately i can't order frow the sites that show showed to my country. thanks!! :)
I gave this a go a while ago. I tried it with samples and it turned out good. I had some stringing issues (old samples) so image had random blue Web through it but it was good. Had issues with warping, corners would refuse to stay down as its a solid plastic plate printed flat and also had a nice jam in heartbreak near the end. Cool idea, cool picture. Alot of effort
At 4:40 you mention that these must be printed flat to reduce the number of color changes. Is there any reason why you couldn't just print the color layers flat and then print the luminance layers vertically separately? That way you would get the convenience of fewer color changes but also reap the benefit of superior xy resolution for the luminance layers.
I have tried that but you get the same effect as when people just try slapping on a piece of colored paper on the back of a lithophane, the color becomes soft, not crisp, and ever so slightly blurry. It is something that is hard to explain but if you see it in person the drop in quality of not printing it in one piece is quite noticeable.
It's pretty easy. Set your slicer to use multiple extruders, set the filament change gcode to a pause (@pause for octoprint, depending on your firmware this will be different. you may also have to set a park location). import the stls, one per colour, they should import aligned but this will be slicer dependent, and set each stl to a different nozzle. Note the sequence of the colours per layer over the print and swap in the colours in the right order as the printer pauses. resume once you have purged the new colour through the nozzle. If you let us know what slicer you have and what firmware you have, or if you use octoprint, then someone may be able to be more specific. I personally use prusa slicer and octoprint.
This is a more modern symbol for Autism (and neurodiversity in general) to replace the unfortunate missing puzzle piece that has historically been used. It is multi colored because Autism is a spectrum difference, everyone presents differently, including myself.
There's only one thing I don't like about lithophanes. You either can make out the final motive without light shining through, or it is just a flat plane. I'd like to have a generator that adds a 2nd motive / pattern you can see from the "front" without light but is subtracted from the back so that you can see the actual motive only if the light shines through.
I want to like this. I can't. I am not about to do 16 filament changes. Nor am I ready to pay $700 for a pallete 3 or $1000 for a bambu x 1 carbon. Especially since you are going to get similar results using transparency sheets and a little knowledge about photo editing. and know how to align the image with the print
Bambu Labs getting a feature here. I will be trying this once my printer shows up this August. Holidays, birthdays, and special occasions are low hanging fruit!
@@CNCKitchen now that the Kickstarter is complete and you’ve had even more time with the Carbon… Any other thoughts on the printer that would help a future owner?
I just printed my first color lithophane with my Bambu printer. It looks good except the colors are wrong. The primary character in the photo is green and it came out blue. I used the Bambu CYMW kit, so all my filaments were correct.
Hi, is there any setting-sheet for printing this with an bambu lab x1c? So in your Video you mean: set color layers to 0.08 and luminous layer to 0.05. But where can i set this? :D
@@CNCKitchen It was just in proof-of-concept phase back then, if I recall correctly. I don't even think he had an easy way to convert the images yet, he was doing it all manually in a photo software. Definitely was a "that's interesting" table then vs. a "I can do a video about this" table now.
Except Photoshop i do not find anything to separate in 4 separate files (cmyk) - for plotting with aerobrush or paintspray. If someone knows any other way to do that (stand alone app if is posible), please let me know! It s easy to buy a inkjet printer and have no idea how is work, but when u have to paint a large wall...
This is how I 3d print my business cards. They snap apart and fold up into a tiny cart for USB sticks. But only with 1 filament, this multifilament process is cool.
would like to try this can you do it on an Ender 3 pro. If so do you have to change filament a lot or can it print all one color then change filament and do the whole other color and then change one more time for the third color. Or would you have to change the film excessive around times.
I did multi colors print resently on prusa mini and prusaslicer. I HAD to make a custom wipe block/layer start location, because after color change it always created an ugly blob(prb because of m600 on mini). Otherwise it worked great
By the way, you are printing it wrong. Idealy you will be printing this standing, so the printer use z axis and x axis for movement, which is more precise than printing lying down.
Not wrong, just a different trade off. With 0.05 layer height and a 0.25 nozzle these, in person, look like they came out of a mold. It also eliminates visible layer lines which are prominent in vertical printed lithophanes unless the printer is tuned perfectly.
I been researching the Colored Lithophanes a lot in prep for Bambu Lab X1. One thing I'm still confused is Lithophane Resolution (mm/pixel). Colored Resolution per Jason's video is 2x your nozzle size. Default nozzle is 0.4mm, so it would be 0.8 colored resolution for most. For Bambu X1 that uses 0.2 mm nozzle, that is 0.4 colored resolution. However I still don't get the lithophanne resolution, even with explanation that it is distance between pixels in the printed lithophane, so a value of 0.3 mm/pixel means that each unique lithophane thickness is 0.3mm apart in the x and y dimensions. I do know the smaller resolution = bigger file size, but I'm certain if there any hard limit like with color resolution with nozzle size.
There is no direct formula that I have figured out based on nozzle size and layer height. Until recently I just used the defaults but I did crank up the lithophane resolution for the leaf one and I think it made some improvement because of the small nozzle I was using.
It should not be nozzle size, but wall thickness that limits resolution. And you can set wall thinkness quite a bit lower then your nozzle diameter. A pixel is a 2x2 wall square, so the mininum pixel distance is wallthickness times 2. Using a 0,2 nozzle and arachne slicer settings, I bet you could get a very high resolution...for a 3d print.
I think the point is about being able to shine light through it, though I'm sure there are ways to do this with regular printers too, I think the texture and physicality of it is the point. It's also probably cheaper than paying to print on paper in any university (that was only slightly a joke)
@@BeefIngot The "texture and physicality of it" is the only real plus but it's not much of a plus given how thin the texture will be compared to a sculpture style print with paint.
