High Speed Motion Control for 3D Printers

3D printing has become a cornerstone technology for prototyping products during product development. However, the process is too slow for even small production runs. Pantheon Design in Vancouver has set out to increase the speed of extrusion printing by a factor of 10. To date, they have achieved a five-fold increase in print speed compared to other commercial printers. This was achieved by improving the physical design of the printers. To further increase the print speed, they need to optimize the software algorithms used to control the printers. They have partnered with a laboratory at UBC in Kelowna that has extensive experience controlling machine tools such as high-speed routers. This experience will be transferred to 3D printing in the course of this project and it is anticipated that print speed can be increased by at least another factor of two.

Faculty Supervisor:

Rudolf Seethaler

Student:

Partner:

Pantheon Design Ltd.

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

The University of British Columbia - Okanagan

Program: