Current monitoring for a fused filament fabrication additive manufacturing process using an Internet of Things system

Abstract

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) has led to the transformation of manufacturing systems into digital ecosystems. The Internet of Things (IoT) and other emerging technologies play a significant role in this shift. Smart sensor systems are necessary to integrate their resources into the digital world to move small and medium size manufacturers toward digital transformation. The proposed work offers an IoT-based current monitoring system for a fused filament fabrication (FFF) additive manufacturing process to assist in the digital transformation efforts. In this work, we investigate how a widely available microcontroller paired with a non-invasive split core current transformer can create functional data streams to support critical industry-related applications. We tested the IoT solution using two different sampling algorithms and different sampling windows to assess how they influence the output of the device. Our results indicate the successful current draw monitoring of static resistive power loads and an FFF additive manufacturing process. More specifically, the IoT device was able to differentiate between different levels of current draw and produces output that is suitable for a wide range of manufacturing machinery applications such as power monitoring, downtime recognition, task recognition, and condition monitoring.