With the U1 that I preordered I am practicing Orca/Snapmaker Orca to paint a TPU surface onto my model. I only want the outer wall to be TPU but it is going 2 or 3 walls deep. I very much hope there is a way to designate just one wall for a particular color or material. I’ve looked and can not find. It would be very discouraging if this is not possible and if not the whole purpose of ordering the U1 is void.
It seems like that feature not available in Orca, but if a model you want to paint is design by you may just create an assemble of parts and then assign colour for each part, or mesh editing.
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I’m trying a number of workarounds. Grok and GPT suggest modifiers but that doesn’t seem to work so far. Guys of Discord are suggest much the same as you. I’m trying but nothing yet. I would really like to make it work using paint too.
GUYS!!! I / WE got it!!! Womblys direction of Boolean! This should help a lot of people!
So:
1 - Offset individual Sketches (in Freecad)
2 - Create a Solid (Shell) Loft from the Offset Sketches. NOTE: I had to refine the original sketches to be tangent or the Loft would not work.
3 - Boolean Cut the Original from the Shell Loft leaving “The Shell”
4 - Save both the Original Model and The Shell Loft as STL.
5 - Drag both into Orca and select YES, Load Files as Single Object.
6 - Designate Extruder to the Shell Loft.
7 - Make settings of Walls for each Extruder. I use no infill.
NOTES:
- I suspect/hope I can use modifiers to remove the surface TPE where I do not want it.
- By Adjusting the Amount of Offset (Shell Loft) the TPE Shell can be adjusted for thickness.
- I once saw a video where the depth of the paint was adjustable. It was done on raised text. Not sure it would work on a model such as mine
and I have no idea what video that was right now. - Today is my 60th Birthday boooooooo
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Happy Birthday! Where is the cake 
?
Glad you found a solution.
I think it should be possible with scripts in the slicer or search and replace in notepad.
I don’t know orca slicer well but for your purpose scroll through the gcode and find something like outer wall and add your extruder count to it like T1 ;outer wall.
In the next step you need the correct extruder for the next (or every other) feature like infill, support, etc..
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Thanks, I never messed with the gcode before. I should learn.
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Also, it’s possible to do scaling and part subtractions directly in the slicer if that helps you fine tune it later. Or if you ever don’t have the original CAD file.
Happy birthday, whether you like it or not, buddy! 
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No problem all you need to do is print the cake, then you will have it when you are ready. you could even save it until next year and it will still be fresh.
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I removed the solution and would like to reopen this conversation.
The title is “Painting and Wall Count”. Painting is the ultimate goal. So, while I am just now refining my original model to accommodate the new skins. (Am holding the printed model w/o TPE now.) Though getting a uniform skin around the model seems like it is going to work, I will, at the least, need to remove the TPE in areas. FYI, I sometimes ask questions I think I know the answer to but would like confirmation and am trying to get a head start so asking question before trying myself. Thank You.
So what are your thoughts on how to:
- Paint in particular areas on the skin, thus to a particular wall depth? (What happens in the areas not painted?)
- Remove TPE in particular areas to a particular depth?
- Stop the TPE from printing in defined areas? - Exclude the TPE from certain areas?
- I want my logo to show the ASA layer through the TP. I have ideas on how to do this but since I have your attention I figger I get your thoughts on that?
- Other advice?
Goal:
Paint or Remove where TPE Skin desired or not desired….?
Ummm. I mean Yummmm . You know the NWO is printing food, right? Bug filament. I could go on and on.
in the latest Cura settings for paint depth in mm is available not sure will Cura have a profile for U1 but I would love it.
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I have said after about three years into the 3D printing world. Slicers is where the real revolution in printing will happen.
I’ve been confused for years now and this is going to sound kinda stupid i guess.
Why do profiles matter?
I can change the settings under a custom printer or .. whatever…Profiles seem like suggestions to me. What I care about is compatibility? Right?
You are absolutely right but unfortunately there are a lot of users coming in which assume a out of the box experience without any troubles..
I did not much multicolour printing but it seems Prusa slicer is the way to go for maximum flexibility.
I currently have to use Prusaslicer because Orca slicer is giving me a Line Error.
353,P_4,T_10
4000000
I have no idea how to fix such a thing.
If Prusaslicer works on the Snapmaker U1 then that is good as far as I’m concerned.
In Orca and other non-Cura based slicers, there is no control of painting depth yet.
Likewise, as mentioned in Discord, I think the answer to all of your questions is to model your design accordingly.
Draw the skin as a separate part with the desired thickness. Not as shells. As solid parts with the desired thickness wherever needed. (Slicers recognize solids, not surfaces.) In the model you have the freedom to add and remove material as you like.
Then in the slicer you print the core and the shell assembly with the appropriate material assigned to each.
You also keep saying “skin,” but I hope it’s still more than one layer thick. A single wall of flexible filament is not at all likely to hold together for long. Layer adhesion, it’ll just separate. Especially if seams are aligned, etc. This is part of the reason painting a wall doesn’t just do one layer on the wall. It needs depth to get to good extrusion and hold fast to the main body.
For logo, again, I know how to do that in Fusion but not Freecad or Blender. You can import an image to use for extrusion in Fusion.
You might search YouTube for some quick tutorials on how to do some of these tricks in Freecad/Blender. Actually for the logo as well. I believe Orca has the ability to emboss things in the slicer, but I don’t 100% remember if it does image embossing.
As for the skin. It will be TPE SEBS onto ASA which fuses together. I hope to get away with about 1.5mm skin.
I have had the logo attached to the model for a few years now. Took a lot of learning but getting the logo on the Grippy Ippy is not a problem. I’m trying to think ahead of time how I tell the TPE not to print where the logo is.
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Ahhhhh, ASA. Gotcha.
And yeah, 1.5 mm is also a little thick anyhow.