Development of Multi-Material 3D Printer

Abstract

We present development of multi-material Fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer. Most of the FDM type of 3d printers are able to print plastics such as ABS, PLA and Nylon in a single run. In order to overcome this problem, we have developed an affordable multi-material 3D printer that can print an object with a different kind of soft and hard material in a single run. The combination of printing soft and hard materials in a single run will open the doors to various applications such as soft robotics, actuators and sensors. One of the main printing materials for this printer is the conductive based soft filament made by our laboratory “Soft & Wet Matter Engineering Laboratory”, along with other different soft filament and hard plastic filament to create a fully functional, multi-material printer to print objects in a single printing run with greater diversity and lower cost than any other single material printer. We have developed a single screw-based extruder 3D printer extruder type 3D printer that can print both soft and hard materials. Instead of using a filament to 3D print objects, we have used pellets of different materials, including carbon-based conductive composites. Such type of single screw base extruder 3D printer will be a new addition to the additive manufacturing process.