Event Title

Low Cost Welding Based Metal 3D Printer

Presenter Information

William White, Minnesota State University - Mankato
Dominic Tunison, Minnesota State University - Mankato

Location

CSU Ballroom

Start Date

20-4-2015 10:00 AM

End Date

20-4-2015 11:30 AM

Student's Major

Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering Technology

Student's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Mentor's Name

Kuldeep Agarwal

Mentor's Email Address

kuldeep.agarwal@mnsu.edu

Mentor's Department

Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering Technology

Mentor's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Second Mentor's Name

Winston Sealy

Second Mentor's Email Address

winston.sealy@mnsu.edu

Second Mentor's Department

Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering Technology

Second Mentor's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Description

3D printing is one of the most innovative and latest manufacturing process in the last decade. This technology has changed the way we think about manufacturing and can be used for various day to day items. There are numerous low cost 3D printing machines available today. Most of these machines can make parts out of plastics like ABS, Nylon or PLA. While the parts created from these printers can be used for many purposes, these fail when there is a need for a metal part. The current metal based machines are very expensive and cannot be used in small settings. The aim of this research is to develop a low cost metal 3D Printer. An open source design is used to manufacture the printer using a traditional MIG welding system. The printer is capable of printing simple shapes and geometries. We used an existing design of a similar printer in this research and modified it to improve the deposition rate and the resolution. We hope that this will enhance the distribution of these printers on a small scale and spur up innovation in this domain too.