Design and development of dual-extruder food 3D printer based on selective compliance assembly robot arm and printing of various inks

Abstract

Recent research in food 3D printing mainly focuses on ink materials, with relatively limited research on printer equipment development. Furthermore, the development of traditional food three-axis 3D printer is high cost and low productivity. In this study, we developed a dual extruder for food 3D printing, and designed a dual-extruder system based on Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) equipment. The productivity was determined by measuring significance analysis on the physical dimensions and the texture characteristics of the printed products using single/dual-extruder. A variety of food inks were experimented and various self-developed print paths were experimented with. The results of the two sets of significance analyses on physical dimensions and texture characteristics lead to the conclusion that the development of the dual-extruder system based on the SCARA machine arm successfully improved productivity. This also verified the broad adaptability of the device's inks, which operate on the principle of air pressure extrusion. We believe that this finding provides a new research direction for 3D printing of food products.