Basics of Splice Tuning For Palette 3

Palette splices together different materials and feeds them into 3D printers to create objects with multiple colors and materials. Palette uses a combination of heat, compression, and cooling to join these filaments together depending on the materials’ properties.

Splices should be:

• Strong enough to feed into your extruder without breaking
• Have a diameter of approximately 1.75 mm ± 0.15 mm so they feed properly.

If possible, it is best to measure the diameter with digital calipers, with the filament placed vertically so the splice is measured at multiple points versus just one. We recommend using filament that is within +/- 0.03 mm spec of 1.75 mm to create the best quality splices.

Materials require different amounts of heat, compression, and cooling to create good splices.

You can use Materials Profiles to control how much heat, compression, and cooling are used when splicing together different materials. These can be found, created, or adjusted in our Canvas software or PrusaSlicer/Slic3r.

Canvas, PrusaSlicer/Slic3r include default values that work for the majority of filaments (like PLA and PETG), but if you are using special filaments like solubles, flexibles, or other exotics, the Splice Tuning feature will help you find the ideal settings so your Palette can create optimal splices.

Heating & Cooling Factor

The amount of time the splice core spends heating and cooling filament can dictate your splice quality. The most common issues you may experience are brittle splices and necking. Both these issues can be solved by adjusting the Heat and Cooling Factor. Note that each increment of 1 in your Heat and Cooling Factor value adds an additional half second to the heating and cooling time.

• Brittle splices - This occurs when the filament is weak at the point of the splice. When applying a small amount of pressure, the splice snaps or breaks apart. A strong splice is malleable and can bend and act as if it were a single strand of filament without issue.
  • If you’re experiencing brittle splices, increase the Heat Factor by one unit at a time testing the splice after each increase. For every increase of 1 heat you should also increase cooling by 1 increment to counteract this.
  • Dehydrating the spool can help, here is a resource on how to do that. You can also prevent brittle filament by using proper storage, but the whole spool might need to be swapped out all together.

• Necking splices - This occurs when splices are heated for too long, causing splices to ‘neck’ and create a thin string-like center at the splice. Decrease the Heat Factor and increase the Cooling Factor to fix this issue.

• Bulging splices - These are most commonly caused by over-compression, and/or too little heat applied to the splice. The pieces of filament are pushed too far into each other, without enough heat to make the splice molten. Reduce compression first, and then try increasing the Heat and Cooling Factors.

Compression Factor

The Compression Factor adjusts the distance the two filament ends are compressed into each other. If the filaments are compressed too much or too little, it can negatively affect splice quality.

If the Compression Factor is set too low, you will see a small penetration cone in the splice.

Increasing the compression factor to create a larger penetration cone, will help with splice quality.

Alternatively, having too much compression can affect splice quality negatively as well, as Palette 3 will try to force the compression of the filament together. Often, users will hear a skipping sound from the motors if their compression value is too high. Skipping will weaken the bond between the two filaments as it will cause the filaments to separate. If you hear Palette 3’s ingoing drives skipping or grinding away at filament when splicing, decrease the Compression Factor by 1 at a time to reduce this.

For steps on how to change your splice tune data on your Palette and in Canvas, click here.

If you are finding that your splice tuning settings are good for many splices and you experience and intermittent splice that is either necking or bulging, please take the following troubleshooting steps.

1. Ensure your splice core is seated properly.
2. Try using these splice settings: Heat: 4, Cool: 4, Compression: 4
3. Check for POGO collapse: Remove your splice core from your unit, by removing the thumbscrew holding it in place. If the prongs on the bottom are no longer springy or look like the image below, there is damage. Please contact us at support@mosaicmfg.com so that we may send you a new one.

If you find that you are still experiencing a bad splice after the above steps, please send us a video of your Palette while it is splicing, focusing on the filament path and the splice core so that we may inspect your unit and offer additional troubleshooting.