Abstract:
We consider the FDM 3D-printing technology in this article. All accomplishments and limitations of this technology were studied. After analyzing the 3D-printing market and examining different designs of printers working for FDM technology, we decided to upgrade 3D FDM technology. We have developed a unique design that allows it to use 4 extruders during the print.
Today only one nozzle is used at any time by the FDM printing standard. There are designs that have two or more nozzles, but they print separately at different times and each of them performs certain operations. For example, printer has two nozzles and one nozzle prints primary part of the model, and the second nozzle prints supporting structures by using soluble plastic.
Under parallel FDM printing (or PFDM printing) means the simultaneous use of a few extruders. This approach will ensure high printing speed proportionally to the number of working extruders.
Our design uses four extruders, which must carry out simultaneous print layer. Each print area has its own extruder, but it can use an adjacent area in a small amount to achieve a smooth dense printing.
In this article, we describe an algorithm, recommended for the PFDM printer G-code creation. We have created a 3D-model of the PFDM printers proposed design, which is also present in this work.
If PFDM technology is successfully implemented, it will be a significant contribution to the development of both FDM and other printing methods.
Keywords:FDM, PFDM, 3D-printer, 3D parallel printing, 3D-modeling, prototyping.