Design and Fabrication of a Modular Multi-Material 3D Printer by Justin
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Design and Fabrication of a Modular Multi-Material 3D Printer by Justin Lan S.B. Mechanical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011 Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering ARCHIVES MASSACHUSETTS INST IfE OF TECHNOLOGY at the JUN 25 2013 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY !?RA R1 ES June 2013 @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013. All rights reserved. Author Depfnent of Mechanical Engineering April 30, 2013 Certified by ....................................................... .......- ---- I ------------- Wojciech Matusik Associate Professor of Electrical ngineering and Computer Science Thesis Supervisor CertifiedCertified by..............................................by John Leonard Professor of Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Faculty Reader Accepted by W-David E. Hardt Ralph E. and Eloise F. Cross Professor of Mechanical Engineering Chairman, Department Committee on Graduate Students Design and Fabrication of a Modular Multi-Material 3D Printer by Justin Lan Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering on April 30, 2013, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering ABSTRACT This thesis presents 3DP-0, a modular, multi-material 3D printer. Currently, 3D printers available on the market are typically expensive and difficult to develop. In addition, the simultaneous use of multiple materials in 3D printing has not been extensively explored. The printer presented in this thesis was developed to address these shortcomings. The printer features a low-cost high-performance design largely using commercial off-the-shelf parts. Inkjet print heads from commercial desktop printers allow the use of multiple materials within a single print. In addition, the modular and open design of the printer allows the independent and continuing development of print heads and print materials. Testing has shown the system to be capable of producing objects with fine features, including 500 jm-wide cubes containing multiple materials separated within a core. Thesis Supervisor: Wojciech Matusik Title: Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Mechanical Engineering Faculty Reader: John Leonard Title: Professor of Mechanical Engineering 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Wojciech Matusik for giving me the opportunity to work on this exciting and engaging project. I would also like to extend my thanks to the members of the Computer Graphics Group, both for their technical support on the project and for being a fantastic community to be a part of these past two years. I would also like to thank Ron Wiken of the CSAIL machine shop. I made most of the components used on the project in the CSAIL shop, and Ron was always there to provide help when I needed it. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for their support during my time here at MIT. Thanks for helping me to keep things in perspective. 3 Contents 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 6 2 B ackgroun d ........................................................................................................................ 7 2.1 Multi-M aterial Printers ........................................................................................................... 8 2.1.1 Stratasys O bjet Connex Series ............................................................................... 8 2.1.2 Fab@ H om e...........................................................................................................................8 3 D esign Goals.....................................................................................................................11 3.1 Balance Betw een Cost and Quality............................................................................. 11 3.2 Modular and O pen A rchitecture.................................................................................. 12 3.3 Multi-M aterial Printing .................................................................................................. 13 4 D esign ................................................................................................................................. 15 4.1 Distribution of Motion A xes .......................................................................................... 15 4.1.1 A rrangem ent of the A xes ............................................................................................ 15 4.2 Design of a Linear Motion A xis ..................................................................................... 18 4.2.1 Linear Guides ................................................................................................................... 18 4.2.2 Transm ission.................................................................................................................... 20 4.2.3 A ctuators............................................................................................................................ 21 5 Hardw are Im plem entation ..................................................................................... 24 5.1 X- and Y -Axes Overview ................................................................................................... 24 5.2 X -A xis D etails............................................................................................................................ 27 5.3 Y-A xis D etails............................................................................................................................ 29 5.4 Z-A xis Overview ...................................................................................................................... 31 5.5 Z-A xis Details ............................................................................................................................ 32 5.6 Modular System ....................................................................................................................... 36 5.7 Print Heads ................................................................................................................................ 38 5.8 Electronics and W iring ......................................................................................................... 39 5.9 Fram e and Enclosure ........................................................................................................ 40 6 Controls System Im plem entation ............................................................................. 4 3 7 R esults ................................................................................................................................ 50 4 7.1 Bas-Relief Coin ......................................................................................................................... 50 7.2 Multi-M aterial "Dots"........................................................................................................ 52 8 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 54 8.1 Extensions / Future W ork.............................................................................................. 54 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 55 Appendix A: Measuring the Maximum Acceleration of the X-Axis ............. 57 Appendix B: MATLAB Code............................................................................................. 58 Appendix C: Bill of Materials............................................. 60 5 1 Introduction Additive manufacturing is rapidly finding a variety of applications in producing objects with complex geometries. In particular, as 3D printers build up the final object from raw materials rather than starting with a monolithic piece of stock, the material composition of the object being fabricated can be varied, resulting in a multi-material object. This technique can be used to produce objects with non-uniform mechanical properties and internal structures such as conducting traces. However, few available additive manufacturing technologies support the use of multiple materials in the same object; those that do are closed-source and expensive, making development of new materials and applications expensive. This thesis presents the design of a 3D printer to address these concerns. The printer has the following qualities: * Multi-Material: The printer uses inkjet print heads to dispense build materials, allowing for the production of objects composed of more than one type of material. e Low-cost, high-resolution: The printer is intended to supply print quality approaching that of industrial 3D printers, with a price only a few times that of current desktop printers. " Modular: The print heads are attached to the printer using a modular system, allowing the use of multiple types of print heads as well as the development of print heads independent of the printer's positioning system. First, in Section 2 an overview of existing multi-material 3D printers is presented. Next, the motivation for the development of a new type of 3D printer is discussed in Section 3, with an emphasis on addressing the shortcomings of current 3D printers. The design of the motion system is presented in Section 4 along with alternative