Questions about the new Color Kit

General Discussion
1

I just saw a post on the 3d printing reddit about the new Color Kit available for the Form 2. I was pretty excited as just this past weekend I was really wishing there was a preform supported method to dye/pigment the existing resins. I do have a few questions about this new kit.

  1. What is the "color base’? Clear? White?
  2. Can you mix the dyes/pigments with any of the existing resins? Specifically clear and/or durable
  3. Does Preform need to know the exact color mixture in the bottle?
  4. Would it be more efficient to send customers premixed colors, instead of kits in which most of the dye will be wasted once you have the color you desire? Maybe that is a product that could be added once people find the colors they need for their work?

Here is the official Formlabs post about the new color kits: https://formlabs.com/blog/introducing-color-kit/

2

I’m guessing the base is Clear, from what I can guess all of the standard resins use the same base, the only difference being the pigment used.
What would be useful is some way to mix a smaller amount of colored resin so that you don’t use an entire cartridge for one color.

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3

I was thinking that too. Maybe another kit with 2 - 500ml bottles of color base?

4

I imagine you can mix whatever amount you want in a resin tank and do open mode, or keep an empty cartridge to do full operation but only with the resin available in the tank. I agree it is impractical to experiment when you are mixing an entire liter of resin at once, so you have to experiment using small batches.

5

Once you add color to the cartridge it’s not going to be easy to change color because of contamination.

My guess is that you could split the resin down into 250 mL containers and scale the color recipe. Then run in open mode.

I don’t see the color base alone on the store page. Might be a good option to add for people that have too much colorant . Same goes for the colorants. Many might only want blue for instance and purchasing just blue might be a good option.

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6
  1. Color base is a white color, but not identical to our GP white material
  2. The dyes are designed to be used with color base
  3. PreForm does not need to know the exact color mixture used, but you should follow our standard recipes or use the recipe calculator for the material to print properly
  4. Yes, we will sell the components separately in the near future to help you reduce waste.
5 Likes
7

Thank you for answering all my questions. Would it be possible to use the dyes with the durable resin?

8

Heck ya! Great news Formlabs! Thank you so much for continuing to work on improving these wonderful printers!

So excited :slight_smile:

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9

Generally no. Only mixing within the color kit and according to our formulas will yield resins that will print well.

You can always experiment, but it’s not intended for mixing with clear or durable or anything else. If there is a lot of demand, we can definitely support those materials in the future.

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10

I’ve been printing with the color kit and 100ml yellow die. However, it seems that this resin is over curing a lot.
The result is much different than printing with Grey V3 resin. Support contact points seemed to be bigger.

Is this normal?

11

Greetings!

I have been experimenting with mixing my pigments outside of the cartridge first, to see what the color combination looks like. But keeping it to the ratio/ and making sure to equal 100.

But I would say, that if there was a way to know that the color I saw pre-mixed was EXACTLY or closer to the color that resulted from the printer, that would be amazing! Like starting with a clear resin, and having the pigment determine the color completely.

Definite interest from my part! Thank you!