Track: Undergradute Research Competition

Abstract

The old traditional manufacturing process depends on the principle of removal of materials, which involves non-linear materials processing and have scrap or waste material left after the manufacturing is completed. Significant developments have been in this type of manufacturing over the last fifty years. However, there was always a desire to manufacture products in such a way that the wastage reduces to zero. The concept of additive manufacturing made a breakthrough in this direction and soon has attracted the attention of researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs all over the world. The most common adoptive form additive manufacturing is 3D printing. 3D printing has opened new opportunities in terms of manufacturing possibilities and shifted the manufacturing paradigms. This project aims to in-house design, fabricate and test a 3D printer. A design is developed consisting of sets of screws driven by BLDC motors and one CNC controller, a extruder and heat sink, a print bed, a structure and housing to incorporate all as one unit. A laptop computer using Mach3 software controls the 3D printer. Most of the 3D printers available in the market use stepper motors, which has relatively low values in terms of accuracy and efficiency. Our designed 3D printer uses BLDC motors due to significantly higher levels of accuracy and efficiency. Moreover, we used ball screws instead of the usual lead screws as they provide smoother, quieter, and thereby more efficient motion. These three components make this design a novel one that has high potential to compete with the other available 3D printers. Finally, the 3D printer is tested, and the printed objects are highlighted to see if this creative combination can be used to advance this manufacturing process.