Notifications
Clear all

MultiMaterial with 1 extruder  

  RSS
daSpud
(@daspud)
Eminent Member
MultiMaterial with 1 extruder

I am trying to print some lettering in a different color than the background.  It looks like it all sliced correctly, but the printer did not stop and ask me to change the filament as I had expected it would.  It printed the background color and then the wipe tower and then went right on printing the letters in the base color. 

Am I supposed to put in a manual filament change code?  I don't see how because the change is not at a layer boundary.  I have attached a pic of the extruder/filament list.  The print is just a bit too big to print as one unit so I had to break it into 2 parts and each letter became a part.  I merged them back together (I think).

Thanks for any help.

Posted : 20/05/2026 12:15 am
Same Old Shane
(@same-old-shane)
Member Admin
RE: MultiMaterial with 1 extruder

It looks like you are trying to set it to print with a MMU3 attached to the core one L, but sounds like you do not have one. 
In order to do what you want, you need to add a M600 / color change. 

you can take a look at this and it should help you
https://help.prusa3d.com/article/color-change_1687

Shane (AKA FromPrusa)

Posted : 20/05/2026 1:53 am
daSpud
(@daspud)
Eminent Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: MultiMaterial with 1 extruder

Thanks for the reply.  Yes, I am trying to be my own MMU.  The color change procedure in the article you cite is good for between layers but I need to change in the middle of a layer.  I can see the wipe tower start in the gcode.  It looks like the slicer forgot to put the color change in there.

I tried this same thing with my MK4 and I get a lot of gcode about wipe and tool change at the cross over point.  I think the slicer has an error.

I did not run the MK4 gcode, but I did run a very similar thing on a smaller project on my MK3 and that prompted me to change filament without my adding anything special

Posted : 20/05/2026 6:14 am
lw36
 lw36
(@lw36)
Eminent Member
RE: MultiMaterial with 1 extruder

What you're doing is correct.

I did the same a few weeks ago and found out, that you have to copy the "Color change G-Code" to the "Tool change G-Code" field under Printer->Custom G-Code

The article that Shane references explains how to setup a color change where you want to have the same color for the whole layer, for inlaid text, your approach is the right one.

Posted : 20/05/2026 6:14 am
Share: