Multi-material printing

[Hoopy]

Multi-material printing is becoming much more important for me. In particular with a machine like the Prusa XL where the print volume makes gluing/bolting parts together (due to size constriants) less relevant and real multi-material printing is possible rather than just multi-colour printing of the same material or materials with very similar printing requirements.
I know I can export an assembly and then assign different extruders in the slicer to the different parts and that works fine. What I'm after is the same possibility for a part. For simple things, the multimaterial painting in PrusaSlicer (when set to "Smart fill") is a makeshift way to do it, but not the real thing. I've found comments on the internet about tools that do that based on the feature colour, but these are all very old and the links are broken meanwhile.
Does anyone know of a tool that does something like that?
Or alternatively would something like that be possible in AlibreScript?
I'd be willing to write my own tool in Python if that's possible. I'm much less inclined to do so if it's only possible in the C++/C# API (as I don't really want to back to back to develop for/under Windows. A real pity that there will never be a Linux version of Alibre Design).

How do people in this forum go about multi-material printing? Which tools are you using for this (slicer, little helpers, etc.)?

 

[silver2row]

Those are all viable answers and questions. I am not sure about Alibre Script so far. I cannot comment on that effort. I am sure with specific source for slicing, maybe some have better features.

Seth

P.S. I use one nozzle per bed/printer. I have not used multi material printing thus far but from what I understand, the slicer in question is responsible for allowing the gcode data so that it understands its commands. I just use the free version of CURA. So, I have no real supply of intelligence in this dept. of slicer accounting for multiple types of materials.

If the slicer allows it, one could easily account for PLA on one head while the other head has PETG and etc. This is a neat subject. I am glad you brought this attention to the group of people here.

 

[sacherjj]

The multi material I have done is with the AMS on the Bambu X1C. This requires a purge per layer. I typically make a STEP for each material and import them the same time and then assign.

 

[Hoopy]

The multi material I have done is with the AMS on the Bambu X1C. This requires a purge per layer. I typically make a STEP for each material and import them the same time and then assign.

So you have multiple parts (for each material)? That sounds similar to using an assembly with different parts for different materials. Or do I misunderstand and you somehow are able to split a single parts into multiple STEPs for each material?

 

[sacherjj]

I do a step file for each material. Then they load into the slicer in the same geometry and I say they are multiple pieces of the same part. The I assign filament type to each step.