Development of extruder-bench winder to produce polymer filaments for 3D printing

Abstract

This project aims to develop a bench extruder capable of producing polymer filaments with suitable characteristics so that they can be used as raw material in 3D prints. It is estimated that there is a promising demand in the domestic market for cheaper filaments and there is an opportunity to establish a recycling alternative for waste produced by users of 3D printers in their design and printing routines. The search for patents and the identification of projects and extruders available on the internet, together with the results of a scientific initiation research, motivated the elaboration of this proposal. Preliminary research has hypothesized that small-sized equipment could produce filaments with dimensional properties and tolerances required for 3D printing, and thus arouse the interest of a growing market niche comprised of companies developing product designs, research centers ,Schools, universities, prototyping laboratories (FabLabs) and informal designers. In order to carry out this development, the proponent has the support of a small company in the plastic products manufacturing sector, where he has served as an industrial manager, researchers from a public university that work with 3D product and technology and it is still intended to provide services regarding the characterization of polymer materials and the work of two scholarship students, one with competence in the area of electronics and another in the area of mechanics. It is expected that during the nine months project execution a prototype with the possibility of controlling parameters such as extrusion temperature, extrusion speed and winding will be obtained in such a way to produce ABS and PLA filaments with diameters within dimensional tolerance desired as well as the physical properties suited to the 3D printing process. (AU)