Dyeing 3D Printing Finish

Colors

Compatible Materials

  • Nylon PA12
  • Ultrasint® PA11
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Dyeing Guide

Description

With 3D printing being used more and more for turning out ready-made products, it is critical to have access to a means of coloring the parts. With this in mind, a process for obtaining a finish similar to mass-colored plastic has been developed; that is, dyeing .

In contrast to painting, which applies a surface coating to the part, dyeing colors the plastic deeply. This guarantees vibrant colors in particular, but also makes it possible to avoid the phenomenon of peeling or scratching which can occur with paintwork. The lack of excess thickness prevents loss of detail, thus conforming most closely to the original design. What’s more, dyeing reaches all surfaces of the part, including the most inaccessible recesses, resulting in a very uniform finish . This attribute is critical, particularly when 3D printing technology has been selected because of the complexity of the part.

These various advantages make it possible to go from a completely white part to a finished product in fewer steps and therefore at a reduced cost.

Process

The parts are simply immersed in a heated dye bath before being dried.

This process is suitable for our white plastic parts as well as for our alumide parts. For the latter material the finish is similar to glitter – only the plastic is tinted, not the aluminum particles.

Although our team ensures maximum uniformity of colors, a slight difference in the colors of the parts can sometimes be detected . This is due to the fact that dyeing is sensitive to small variations in the bath conditions. In the event of too great a deviation from the reference color, we will reproduce the part in order to satisfy your expectations as fully as possible. 

Delivery Time

Dyeing adds no extra days to the production times for your parts except in the case of economy production, which means:

  • Express production: unavailable.
  • Standard production: minimum 2 to 3 days for plastic, 6 to 8 for alumide.
  • Economy production: the delivery time is not guaranteed. Your object is delivered on average within ten days for plastic. Unavailable for alumides.

The maximum size of your designs is limited by the physical size of our dye baths.

Maximum size for dyeing180 x 220 x 220 mm

There is no minimum size for polyamide printing; just bear in mind that in order to ensure that the item will not break, the minimum thickness of the structural elements is 0.8 mm.

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