Multimaterial printhead layering adjustments
Hello!
I am fairly new to 3D printing so please bear with me.
I am attempting to do a multimaterial print with PLA and bioink. The ink is susceptible to heat and smearing from the printhead nozzle, so I have to make adjustments so that the printheads don't interfere with the print itself.
Ideally I could slice and determine the order for each printhead for each layer, so that the previous layer does not come in contact with the previous layer, essentialy creating a 1 layer separation between the plastic print and the ink print (step printing?).
The slice, as it stands, prints as such: PLA>GEL>GEL>PLA>PLA>GEL>GEL>PLA>PLA>GEL etc... where bold denotes a layer change. Presumably the software slices like this in order to create an efficient print and to avoid switching between printheads. However, I do need control over printhead specficity. The extra layer of gel means the thermoplastic nozzle completely destroys the gel print.
I am hoping to try the following:
PLA>PLA>GEL>PLA>GEL>PLA>GEL>PLA ... etc where the first 2 layers are PLA and the following are alternating, creating a 1 layer separation.
I am playing with the gcode so that I am manually placing each layer (sections of code) and am currently trying to figure out how to best select for the z-axis so the printhead can avoid the printed material due to the layering discrepency.
Is there such a feature as to select the printhead order for each layer? If you could imagine, I am using a 10 layer test piece but eventually I will need to create 200+ layers.
If you have any questions, please ask away. I'll attach a photo so you can get a general idea of the print itself.
Purple denotes the gel and gray denotes the PLA: