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Has anyone had any luck with printing multi-colored prints with the Palette 2 on an Ender 3? If so, what is your steps/mm for the Ender 3 and your flow rate in whatever slicer you are using? I currently have my flow rate at 100 % and my steps/mm at 104.4, and I believe this is what is causing my Palette 2 to not produce accurate results.

About the Palette 2

Palette 2 is a separate device providing one multi color filament out of multiple single color filaments.

As the Ender 3 does not support multi-colour printing, that's why I'm using the Palette 2. It allows any printer to print in multi color as it adds multi color printing to single extruder printers.

Greenonline
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Trey Hope
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    @TreyHope - You need to add more information like what is wrong. Are the colors not changing where you expect them to? – tjb1 Apr 08 '19 at 13:18
  • The OP clearly requires the help from somebody owning both the Ender 3 and the Palette 2, but probably it will be easier for him to contact the Palette customer support... – Roberto Lo Giacco Apr 09 '19 at 23:00
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    What they do need to expand on is what "not produce accurate results" means. – tjb1 Apr 10 '19 at 12:15
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    Hi Trey and welcome to SE.3DP! Please update your question w.r.t. what exactly is the problem and what isn't happening as you expect it to. If you update your question to clarify what is wrong, then the question will be (most likely) reopened. Thanks in advance :-) – Greenonline Apr 11 '19 at 17:43
  • @Greenonline from what I could gather, it seems that you just need to fire up both machines, run the code for the pallete to calibrate the length of the connector tube+bowden tube, then run both machines with the code provided by the slicer - which should run them both to extrude at roughly the same speed forewards and backwards. though I honestly have no idea how to sync the two as they don't appear to be connected... – Trish Apr 23 '19 at 15:29

2 Answers2

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On this thread, Does anyone tried Palette 2.0 on Creality Ender 3 or Ender 3 Pro?, there are a couple of useful links:

However, with respect to your question about the flow rate and steps/mm, there isn't much info out there about that, and no one seems to have experienced similar issues, but your issue might have something to do with profiles - which, as you haven't mentioned them in your question, it is hard to know if that might be the issue or not.

In the same thread, this post, states:

I use it with the Ender 3. There is a profile in Canvas and Chroma for it also.

This link here, Chroma for Palette 2, states that after using Cura, you then need to load the G-code file into Chroma v3.1, after having selected the appropriate profile. However, if you use Canvas, then there is no need for Cura nor Chroma, as Canvas can slice. This link goes through the whole process for Benchy.

At the risk of repetition, the process for preparing the print, post-slicing, is also given here, from Multicolor 3D Printing How To: Using the Mosaic Palette+ with the Creality Ender 3, albeit slightly different from the link above:

Setting Up Chroma:

When you load up Chroma, you’ll be presented with a blank canvas ready to be filled with your 3D creations. In the top left corner, make sure that you have the Ender 3 selected from the drop down menu. After this you can click Load Print. From there you’ll be presented with your gcode files that you have on your computer.

In this example we will be selecting the butterfly-1.gcode file, and clicking Open. From here Chroma will be compiling and arranging the settings for the gcode file to be displayed. This might take a minute or more.

Selecting Your Colors:

Once the loading is completed, you will be presented with the 3D rendering of our butterfly! This butterfly will be in 4 randomly selected colors by default, but we will be changing this next! To change the colors, navigate to the top of the screen where you will see 4 colored circles, and drop down arrows along with each circle. These circles represent the colors of each tool head.

To change the color, click on the Tool Head Colored Circle, and your options for color will appear, we’re going to select Black for our first color. After this, you will want to select the Default PLA Settings by clicking the Drop Down Arrow to the right of the first Tool Head Colored Circle.

As we make these changes you will notice that the 3D rendering of our butterfly will change to our corresponding colors. Repeat this process for the remaining 3 Tool Heads, remember to use the Default PLA Settings for each Tool Head.

Saving Your Project:

After you have selected all your colors, you will click Save for Printer in the top right corner of Chroma. From there, name your file, and click Save. You will be then presented with a loading bar as Chroma prepares our 2 output files. One of the files will be an adjusted gcode file that has added the purge tower we just modified, and the other file will be a file that goes straight to the Mosaic Palette+.

Printing Your Project:

Once the files are ready, you will be presented with a screen that says “Ready to Print!”. On this screen you will be presented with the files you have created for your project, which for us are the butterfly-1.msf which goes to the Mosaic Palette+ and the butterfly-1.msf.gcode file which is your newly created gcode file.
You will also be presented with “Materials Used” for the project, “Number of Splices” for the project, and “Number of Pings” for the project.

After this, you will need to turn your Creality Ender 3 on if it isn’t already. After making sure that you have all your components set up and assembled correctly, then it is safe to begin the printing process.

Depending on your specific project will determine how long the printing process takes. But once your printing process is complete you will be presented with your beautiful multicolored 3D butterfly (or whatever your project was)! After printing is finished, you should let the project cool before you attempt to remove it from the tray. Once it has cooled you can now gently pry the project off of the tray.

Footnotes

1 The CR-10 is, on a broader level, an Ender-3 with 2 lead screws and a slightly different board.

Greenonline
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0

The guide is at Getting Started With Palette 2 (Setup to Printing), which includes guides to use the correct slicer software and swapping the firmware.

The latter part may be a little bit of an ordeal on the Ender3 as there is no bootloader on it - however, it is not apparent from the instruction, whether this would be an issue or not - it seems to be a fairly simple process.

  1. Open your Palette 2 package and remove your Palette 2 unit and USB cable. Connect your Palette 2 to your computer.

    To help the updater recognize the port for your Palette, try unplugging other USB devices.

  2. Download our Firmware Installer for your operating system.

    Latest Palette Firmware V. 4.2.3 (Mar 14, 2019)

  3. Follow the on-screen instructions and click "Install Latest"

  4. Once the firmware is updated, you will receive the Success message, and you can unplug your unit from your computer.

1 For Linux users, please refer to this support article.

Greenonline
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  • @Trish - Following on from our adventure, when we updated the firmware on an Ender, this process described above seem to be a lot less painful (Plug in USB and run an application). I wonder how that is achieved, with out the ISP programming (see [How to install new ATMEGA firmware via the ISP pins?](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6685/how-to-install-new-atmega-firmware-via-the-isp-pins)). Maybe there is a bootloader, after all? – Greenonline Apr 26 '19 at 07:14