Design and Development of an Automated Filament Changing System for Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) 3D Printer Using Axiomatic Design and TRIZ

One of the most widely used 3D printers is the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) printer. However, it has a very long printing process which may encounter printing failure and cause wastage of resources. Therefore, in this study, an attempt to design and develop a home-made and simple automatic filament changing system that is compatible with FDM printers using Bowden tube extrusion system. The designed system is expected to refill filaments particular for overnight 3D printing process. Axiomatic Design and TRIZ are used in this study to systematically design and solve problems faced throughout this research project. Conceptual designs were derived, and the final conceptual design consists of Central Control Sub-System, Filament Guide Sub-System, Merger Sub-System, and Spool Rollers Sub-System. The most critical sub-systems are the Filament Guide Sub-System and Merger Sub-System, which allows filament to refill without human interaction and allow two filament inputs to pass through a merging component to enable one single output. For the Central Control Sub-System, Arduino programming language was used with a MAKER UNO board, an Arduino compatible low-cost microcontroller to control the refilling process. Three limit switches which act as 2 input sensors and 1 output sensor respectively working in tandem with and 2 stepper motors were used to actuate the refilling process. The design of the automatic filament changing system was successful and the testing of the system was successful on the sub-systems level.