Those of you with an older 3D printer or a budget 3D printer will be glad to know there is a project on Kickstarter that can breathe new life into your monochrome machine. It's called The Palette.

New 3D printers are continually popping up with more than one extruder, enabling you to print objects in multiple colours, while older or cheaper printers are often limited to single-colour output. Canada-based Mosaic Manufacturing hopes to change that. It has developed The Palette with the idea of turning any 3D printer into a multi-colour printer. It can even turn a 3D printer into a multi-material printer.

The Palette can handle up to four separate filament strands at once, with varying colours and properties, providing new capabilities to people who already own 3D printers. It acts like a intermediary device between your computer and printer, grabbing a filament, then cutting it, and fusing it with a new one, all with the purpose of letting your printer move beyond creating single-colour plastic objects.

Mosaic Manufacturing has launched a Kickstarter campaign for The Palette and is ready to begin taking pre-orders. The campaign, which started earlier today, has passed its goal of $61,414, with more than a month remaining. The first 20 backers were able to pre-order The Palette for just $599. Currently, backers can pre-order the device starting at $849.

The first units should start shipping to Early Bird backers in December, with full production kicking off a month later. Mosaic Manufacturing has also open-sourced all of its software and firmware for The Palette.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1337298295/the-palette-3d-printing-evolved/widget/video.html