Multi Material
Set up dual-toolhead multi-material and multi-color prints on the 22 IDEX V4: auto-calibration, XY alignment tests, soluble supports and slicer setup.
Multi-material and multi-color printing on the 22IDEX V4 uses both toolheads (T0 and T1) to combine two materials or colors in a single print. This covers:
- Multi-color parts – the same base material (e.g., ABS) in two colors for visual contrast, labeling, or branding.
- Soluble supports – a water-soluble support material (e.g., PVA) that dissolves after printing, leaving clean surfaces on complex geometries.
- Breakaway supports – a support material that mechanically separates from the part without dissolving.
- Multi-material functional parts – combining different materials in one print (e.g., a rigid Nylon housing with self-lubricating IGUS i151 bearings printed directly into it).
This guide covers printer calibration, pre-print preparation, and slicer setup. Follow all steps in order before starting your first multi-material or multi-color print.
Before you begin - safety and risk
Read the Safety - Before You Begin article to understand the hazards involved in working on the Vision Miner 22IDEX V4 - including electrical, thermal, mechanical, and chemical risks. All procedures in this wiki are provided as recommendations only. By choosing to follow any procedure, you do so at your own risk.
Hot nozzles and toolhead wiring during calibration
Auto-calibration heats the nozzles. Keep hands clear of hot surfaces, and do not short toolhead wiring when using a brush for nozzle cleaning.
Clean nozzle tips before probing
Both nozzle tips must be perfectly clean before auto-calibration. Any plastic residue on the tips produces incorrect offset readings. Do not skip the nozzle cleaning steps in the macro flow.
Tools and Materials
- Brush (recommended) – for nozzle cleaning during auto-calibration. Be careful not to short-circuit any wires on the toolhead when brushing.
- 2 mm Hex screwdriver (hex wrench) – for heatbreak set screw adjustment if needed during auto-calibration
- Two filament spools loaded into T0 and T1
- 0.4 mm nozzles on both toolheads (required for XY alignment tests)
Part 1: Printer Calibration and Pre-Print Preparation
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Run Auto-Calibration. Run the Auto-Calibration procedure first. Auto-calibration establishes precise positional relationships between the two toolheads. Without it, the printer doesn't know exactly where each nozzle is relative to the bed and to the other nozzle. The procedure calibrates three things:
- Z-offset – the height of each nozzle relative to the bed, so the first layer prints at the correct distance from the surface.
- Tool height – the height difference between T0 and T1. Both nozzles must be at the same Z level within a tolerance of 50 microns. If the difference is larger, the machine will prompt you to adjust the heatbreak height.
- XY alignment – the horizontal offset between toolheads. The machine probes calibration cutouts in the build plate with each nozzle and calculates how far apart they are in X and Y.
Follow every auto-calibration prompt
During auto-calibration, keep nozzles clean, heatbreaks straight, and heatbreaks positioned as high as the prompts allow. The machine will ask you to verify these – follow each prompt.
Follow the full procedure: Auto-Calibration Procedure
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Watch on YouTube- Clean the purge buckets. Check the purge buckets on both sides of the printer. Remove any accumulated plastic waste. During multi-material printing, the printer purges filament into these buckets at every tool change. If a bucket is full, purged material can pile up and collide with the nozzle.
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Verify XY alignment with a test print. Auto-calibration measures XY alignment by mechanical probing, but actual extrusion can differ slightly from probe measurements. Print a test to confirm both toolheads are aligned in the XY plane.
You have two options depending on your materials:
Option A – Cylinder test (contrasting colors)
Print a two-color cylinder where each layer alternates between T0 and T1. If colors are evenly distributed from all viewing angles, alignment is correct. If one color dominates on one side, adjust the offset using the live macros in the Web Interface.
Option B – Line pattern test (non-contrasting materials)
If your materials are similar in color (e.g., natural Nylon + natural PEEK, or Ultem 1010 + HTS2 breakaway support material) or you don't want to swap filaments for a test, print a single-layer line pattern from both toolheads. Misalignment shows up as a visible step or offset between T0 and T1 line groups – regardless of color.
Test files:
Option Test Type File Download A Cylinder test (contrasting colors) XY - Alignment Test.gcode B Line pattern test (similar colors) XY_aligment_linear_ABS.gcode Full procedure and adjustment instructions for both methods: XY Alignment Calibration
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Watch on YouTubeDo not skip XY verification
Auto-calibration is only a baseline. The test print confirms alignment under real extrusion. A small XY error shows on every layer of a multi-material print.
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Check first-layer consistency across the bed (3-square test). After XY alignment is verified with the cylinder or line pattern test, run the 3-square test to confirm the first layer is even from the left to the right side of the build plate. This is a left-to-right bed-leveling (mesh compensation) check printed with Tool 0 – it is separate from XY offset alignment, but worth confirming before a large multi-material print so both toolheads lay an even first layer across the whole bed.
Full procedure: Bed Leveling Calibration
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Watch on YouTubeIf minor adjustments are needed after this test, fine-tune using the procedures in the XY Alignment Calibration article linked above.
Part 2: Slicer Setup
After calibration and alignment verification are complete, configure your slicer for dual-extruder printing.
- Open your slicer (e.g., PrusaSlicer, SuperSlicer, or OrcaSlicer) and select the 22 IDEX printer profile.
- Assign materials to each extruder:
- Extruder 1 (T0) – select the filament profile for the material loaded in the left toolhead.
- Extruder 2 (T1) – select the filament profile for the material loaded in the right toolhead.
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Import your model and tell the slicer which toolhead prints what. Extruder numbering in PrusaSlicer is 1 = T0 (left) and 2 = T1 (right); 0 means "whatever extruder is currently active" (see the table below). Pick the scenario that matches your print:
Scenario A: part on T0, supports on T1. This is the most common two-toolhead print: the whole part comes out of the left toolhead, and only the support material (breakaway or soluble) comes out of the right one. Go to Print Settings → Multiple Extruders and set:
- Perimeter extruder, Infill extruder, Solid infill extruder: 1
- Support material/raft/skirt extruder: 2
- Support material/raft interface extruder: 2
Leave the model itself with Extruder = default in the object list. If you only want the few layers that touch the part to be support material, set only the interface extruder to 2 and keep the bulk of the support on 1; see the Support Structures FAQ.
Scenario B: two colors or two materials in one part. Leave Print Settings → Multiple Extruders at 1 and assign the second extruder on the model itself. First split the model into the regions that print in each color, then give each region its extruder. There are four ways to get the regions, from cleanest to quickest:
- Split in CAD, import as one object. Export the colored regions as separate STL files from your CAD (a body per color). In PrusaSlicer select all the files at once in Import STL/3MF, and answer Yes when asked whether they represent a single object with multiple parts. The result is one object with several parts that keep their exact relative position. Set Extruder on each part in the object list.
- Split an existing mesh. If the model already consists of separate shells (for example the letters of a label are not fused to the plate), right-click the object and choose Split → To parts. Each shell becomes a part with its own Extruder field.
- Cut a solid model. For a solid model with no separate shells, press C to open the Cut tool, position the plane where the color changes, set the result to Parts (not Objects) so both halves stay in one object, and cut. Set the extruder on each part.
- Paint the colors. Select the model and press N to open Multi-material painting. Pick the extruder in the tool panel and paint the faces that should print in the second color; brush types and the clipping plane work as in the paint-on supports tool. Painting only recolors the outer surface as deep as the perimeters; use one of the split methods above when a whole region must change material.
Whichever way you split it, the part in the object list must have its Extruder set to 1 or 2; a part left at default follows the object. For a small region inside a part, a modifier does the same job: right-click the object, Add modifier, choose the shape, and set its Extruder.
- Enable the Wipe tower: Print Settings → Multiple Extruders → Wipe tower → Enable. After every tool change the toolhead that was just picked up prints a few lines on the tower before it touches the part, so the first lines on the part are already clean and at full pressure. Without the tower, the only purge is the one in the purge bucket, and the first centimetres after each change can be thin or the wrong color.
Wipe tower and support gap: contact distance 0, or Organic supports
PrusaSlicer builds the wipe tower only when both toolheads print on the same layer heights. Supports printed by the second extruder satisfy this in exactly two cases:
- Contact Z distance = 0 (the soluble support setting): support layers then follow the object layers. The Vision Miner Soluble Support profiles ship this way.
- Style = Organic: organic supports are always synchronized with the object, so they work with the wipe tower at any contact distance.
If you set a non-zero gap (for example 0.2 mm for a breakaway material) with the Grid or Snug style and the support extruder is 2, slicing stops with an error about the wipe tower and support layers. Either set the gap to 0 or switch the style to Organic. Support styles and the contact distance are explained in Support Structures.
- Set the idle temperature of the toolhead that waits. A parked toolhead that stays at full print temperature oozes, and the drips end up on the part when it is picked up. In Filament Settings → Temperature → Idle temperature for the filament on the waiting toolhead (usually the support material on T1), set a value roughly 100 °C below the print temperature for high-temperature materials; the Vision Miner profiles ship with a starting value. Lower is cleaner but each tool change then waits for the toolhead to reheat. For soluble supports the idle temperature also protects the filament from softening in the hot chamber; see Running a Soluble Support on the Second Toolhead.
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Leave the slicer's own tool change retraction alone. In the Vision Miner printer profile it is set to 0, because the retraction when a toolhead parks and the purge when it is picked up are handled by the printer, not by the slicer. Those amounts are adjusted from the printer's macros; see Adjusting Purge and Retraction Amounts at Tool Change below.
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Slice and check the preview. Use the Tool color scheme in the preview legend and drag the layer slider: in Scenario A the second color should appear only in the supports and on the wipe tower, in Scenario B only in the regions you assigned. A tool change in an unexpected place means an object, part, or modifier still has the wrong extruder.
- Send the sliced file to the printer via the Web Interface or save it to the SD card.
Tips for slicer setup:
- Always use the latest printer profile for the 22 IDEX. Check for profile updates when updating firmware.
- Before the first real dual print, slice a small test object with the same settings and run it: it costs minutes and shows tool change quality, oozing, and alignment on something you do not mind throwing away.
- When using soluble supports, verify that the support material temperature settings match your filament datasheet.
- Save the project as .3mf, not only the G-code. Extruder assignments, paint, and modifiers live in the project, and the 3MF is also what to send to our support team if you want the slice checked before a long print.
Printing Only With the Right Toolhead (T1)
Sometimes you want a regular single-material print, but from the right toolhead - for example, the material or nozzle size you need is already loaded in T1, and you don't want to swap filaments. The printer itself needs no special setup; you only tell the slicer to use the second extruder.
First, understand the extruder numbering in the slicer settings:
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Default - the slicer uses whatever extruder is currently active (in practice the left toolhead, T0) |
| 1 | Left toolhead (T0) |
| 2 | Right toolhead (T1) |
There are two ways to do it - either one is enough:
Method 1 - assign the extruder on the model. In the object list (model browser), set Extruder = 2 for each model on the plate. Every part of the print then goes to the right toolhead.
Method 2 - assign the extruders in Print Settings. Go to Print Settings → Multiple Extruders and set every extruder field (perimeters, infill, solid infill, supports) to 2. This forces the whole print onto the right toolhead regardless of the models on the plate.
Slice and check the preview: the whole part should be printed by a single tool - one color in the preview, with no tool changes anywhere in the print. If you see a tool change, something on the plate (a model or the supports) is still assigned to the other extruder - the printer would stop mid-print, park the right toolhead, and try to print with the left one.
Adjusting Purge and Retraction Amounts at Tool Change
For the macro dialogs, saved settings, and restoring defaults, see Tool Change Retraction.
At every tool change the printer retracts filament in the toolhead being parked and purges (extrudes) filament into the purge bucket in the toolhead being picked up. Both amounts are set on the printer side, separately for T0 and T1, and the change takes effect at the next tool change, even during an active print. The slicer's own tool change retraction is 0 in the Vision Miner printer profile and should stay that way.
| Value | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Retraction | 5 mm | Filament pulled back when a toolhead parks, so it does not ooze while it waits |
| Extrusion (purge) | 10 mm | Filament pushed out into the purge bucket when a toolhead is picked up, so the nozzle is primed before it reaches the part or the wipe tower |
- In the Web Interface, open Macros → System → Settings → Printing → Tool Change Retraction.
- Choose the tool (Tool 0 or Tool 1), then the parameter (Retraction or Extrusion).
- Enter the distance in millimeters as a positive number (0 to 50) and confirm. The macro shows the value it saved.
Increase the extrusion amount if the first lines after a tool change are thin, foamy, or the wrong color; decrease it to save material once changes are clean. Increase the retraction if the parked toolhead leaves drips on the part; too much retraction pulls soft filament into the cold zone and can cause a clog, especially with soluble supports. Larger purge amounts fill the purge buckets faster, so check them more often.
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If you could not find an answer here, reach out to our support team.