Four colours, one print
Why a four-colour name keychain from our workshop costs the same as a plain one — and what four toolheads have to do with it.
· 2 min read
Ask most print shops for a name keychain in four colours and you get one of two answers: a surcharge, or a plain keychain with the colours painted on afterwards. Ask us and the four-colour piece costs exactly the same as the one-colour piece. People assume there is a catch. There is not — there is a machine.
What usually happens
A typical 3D printer has one nozzle. To change colour it has to stop, pull the old filament all the way out, push the new one in, purge a little blob of the mixed colour into a bin, and start again. On a small keychain with four colours and a dozen layers, that can mean sixty or more changes. Every change costs time and wastes a few grams. Multiply by a batch of twenty and the "free" colours are no longer free, which is why the surcharge exists. The painted-on alternative is cheaper to make but the paint chips on a key ring within months.
What happens in Marikina
Our main printer has four toolheads — four independent nozzles, each loaded with its own colour, parked at the side of the bed. When a layer needs amber, the amber head swings in; when it needs ink, the ink head takes over. There is no unloading, no purge blob, no waiting. A four-colour keychain takes almost exactly as long to print as a one-colour one, and uses almost exactly as much material.
So we price it the same. The colours are not a decoration added later; they are the keychain, solid all the way through. Drop it, scratch it, leave it in a bag with coins — the name stays the colour you chose.
Why we bother explaining
Because "same price" sounds like a gimmick until you know why, and because the four-toolhead setup is also what lets us promise the same-day delivery across Metro Manila that the home page keeps talking about. Fewer stops means shorter print times; shorter print times mean an order placed before noon is boxed by mid-afternoon and in a rider's bag by four.
The limit, for now, is four colours per piece. If you want five, we will talk you down to four and you will not miss the fifth.