Design and development of a rapid prototyping system combining traditional fused deposition modeling and reconfigurable pins platform

Abstract

Additive manufacturing, also commonly referred to as 3D printing, has enabled the rapid production of parts possessing complex geometry. Despite Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) being the most popular process, it still suffers from certain limitations, such as production time and material required to build the material support structure for overhang parts. This results in increased total build time and material requirement. This article aims to eliminate these limitations by using a proposed hybrid reconfigurable pin FDM system. A hybrid system is proposed to eliminate the problem of support build time and material requirements. The proposed hybrid FDM is the combination of traditional FDM with a reconfigurable pins platform. The proposed hybrid system has been implemented for printing an overhang test part. The result analysis also reveals that the proposed hybrid system is an effective way of producing overhang parts without material support structures. A real-life case example is considered for validation of the proposed reconfigurable pins platform.