Mosaic ‘Palette’ Turns Any 3D Printer Into A Dazzling Multi-Color, Multi-Material Tour De Force

It's hard to argue that 3D printing is awesome, but one thing that seems to be widely agreed-upon is that printing in just a single color can get a bit boring after a while. In time, printers that will allow you to create multi-color objects are sure to trickle down to the mainstream, but with The Palette, there's soon to be a stopgap solution.

As seen in the shot above, The Palette isn't a 3D printer itself, but rather an add-on. In effect, it acts as a proxy between your existing 3D printer and different-colored filaments. As a project prints, The Palette will feed the appropriate color filament through, allowing you to turn something bland into something really cool looking. An example:

Note the "existing 3D printer" - that's just what makes this product so useful. Restrictions are: the printer must have an open 1.75mm filament, have access to its feed, and runs .gcode or .x3g. The demo video below highlights its design quite well.

The Palette just launched as a Kickstarter campaign this week, and already it surpassed its $75,000 goal to hit $123,700 as of the time of writing. That kind of immediate success ties in well with what I said before about single colors being a bit boring after a while. Even though The Palette peaks at 4 colors, it's enough of a change to send 3D printing enthusiasts wild.