3D Printing with Robotic Arm USING A ROBOTIC ARM TO CREATE MORE SOPHISTICATED 3D PRINTS European Project Semester Authors: Autumn Semester 2017 Job Trommelen Novia University of Applied Sciences Juan Carlos García Vaasa, Finland Luc Richters Poonam Khatti 04.09.17 – 21.12.17 Project Coach: Rayko Toshev Date: 15.12.2017, Vaasa Supervisor : Rayko Toshev Acknowledgements Acknowledgements to NOVIA UAS for this wonderful opportunity offered, in which we have improved both academically and personally. Special thanks to: Roger Nylund for his guidance during the project. Rayko Toshev and Mika Billing for their expertise, explanations, tips and ideas concerning the ABB Robot for 3D printing. Hanna Latva (English Teacher) for giving us tips on academic writing and presentation delivering skills. Our EPS fellows and other Erasmus students for sharing all these experiences with us and making our time here better and funnier. Thanks to all! i Abstract The development of 3D printers over the last 10 years has been amazing and now it is possible to make your own printer with 50% of the parts printed on another machine. That brought the cost down several times. But current machines are limited by volume. One way to overcome that constraint is to use a robotic arm. Robotic manipulation and 3D printing are closely related, but they have remained mostly separate until now. The aim of this project is to join 3D printing and robotics together, to make 3D printing more flexible and to remove limits. To make it possible, in this project the following main aspects have been developed: designing and 3D printing the extruder’s housing and filament guidance system, mounting the created part onto the robotic arm, programming software to control the necessary hardware like the stepper motor or cooling system, adapting provided software to our system to translate G-code to Rapid code. Finally, the system developed consists of a 3D extruder mounted onto an ABB robotic arm capable of printing 3D models. The project has been developed using different hardware and software. The most remarkable hardware used is ABB IRB-1200 90/5 robotic arm, MiniFactory and Ultimaker 3D printers, Diabase flexion extruder, Arduino board and some Arduino shields. The software used has been SolidWorks, Repetier-Host for MiniFactory, CuraEngine, Arduino Software and ABB RobotStudio. Therefore, in this project, brief and basic information about these technologies has been included. ii Abbreviations 3D Three Dimensional ABS Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene AC Alternating Current AM Additive Manufacturing CDPR Cable-Driven Parallel Robots DC Direct Current DOF Degrees Of Freedom EPS European Project Semester FDM Fused Deposition Modelling IAAC Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia PA Polyamide PC Polycarbonate PEEK Polyether ether ketone PLA Polylactic acid PTFE Polytetrafluoroethylene PS Polystyrene PVAc Polyvinyl Acetate PWM Pulse Width Modulation STL Stereolithography WAAM Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing iii Table of Content ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... I ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. II ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................... III TABLE OF CONTENT .............................................................................................. IV TABLE OF FIGURES ............................................................................................... VII TABLE OF TABLES ................................................................................................... X CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 European Project Semester ...................................................................... 1 1.2 The Team .................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Brand Identity ........................................................................................... 4 1.4 Project Motivation .................................................................................... 5 1.5 Project Target............................................................................................ 5 1.6 Socio-Economic Environment ................................................................... 6 1.7 Document Structure ................................................................................. 8 CHAPTER 2 ............................................................................................................ 9 STATE OF THE ART ................................................................................................. 9 2.1 MX3D ........................................................................................................ 9 2.2 RamLab ................................................................................................... 10 2.3 IAAC ......................................................................................................... 10 2.3.1 TerraPerforma .......................................................................... 11 2.3.2 Material .................................................................................... 12 2.3.3 Mini builders ............................................................................. 12 CHAPTER 3 .......................................................................................................... 14 TECHNOLOGICAL CONCEPTS ................................................................................ 14 3.1 Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) .................................................... 14 3.1.1 3D Printing Technologies .......................................................... 15 3.1.1.1 Powder Bed Fusion ....................................................... 15 3.1.1.2 Directed Energy Deposition .......................................... 15 3.1.1.3 Material Extrusion ........................................................ 15 3.1.1.4 Vat Photopolymerization: ............................................ 15 3.1.1.5 Binder Jetting: .............................................................. 16 3.1.1.6 Material Jetting: ........................................................... 16 3.1.1.7 Sheet Lamination: ........................................................ 16 iv 3.2 Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) ........................................................ 16 3.2.1 Extruders ................................................................................... 17 3.2.2 Materials ................................................................................... 19 3.2.3 Filament thickness .................................................................... 21 3.2.4 Bed material.............................................................................. 21 3.3 3D Printing Software ............................................................................... 22 3.3.1 G-code ....................................................................................... 22 3.3.2 Repetier - Host .......................................................................... 22 3.4 Slicers ...................................................................................................... 23 3.5 ABB Robot ............................................................................................... 24 3.5.1 Robotic arms ............................................................................. 24 3.5.2 ABB IRB-1200 90/5.................................................................... 25 3.5.3 Robot Software ......................................................................... 27 3.5.3.1 ABB RobotStudio .......................................................... 27 3.5.3.2 Rapid Code.................................................................... 29 CHAPTER 4 .......................................................................................................... 30 3D PRINTING TOOL DESIGN AND MOUNTING ....................................................... 30 4.1 Prototype ................................................................................................ 30 4.2 Final Design ............................................................................................. 31 4.2.1 Design Approach ....................................................................... 31 4.2.2 Chosen Hardware...................................................................... 33 4.2.2.1 Extruder ........................................................................ 33 4.2.2.2 Cooling System ............................................................. 34 4.2.2.3 Drive System ................................................................. 37 4.2.2.4 Electronics .................................................................... 37 4.2.3 Housing Design ......................................................................... 39 4.2.4 Guidance System Design ........................................................... 41 4.2.5 Printing Bed .............................................................................. 43 4.2.6 Additional Parts ........................................................................ 43 4.3 Complete 3D Printing Tool .....................................................................