GMAW Additive Manufacturing Research Summary

📌Category: Science, Technology
📌Words: 768
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 15 January 2022

For the research portion of this project, several key areas of interest were identified based on a few assumptions. First, it was key to develop a strong understanding of the construction and operating principles of 3d printers, as it was assumed it would be difficult to improve upon the existing prototype without a clear understanding of how it worked. For this topic, it was also assumed that the principles of construction and motion control present in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3d printers are also applicable to our Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) printer since the primary difference is just the deposition technology. In conjunction with this, existing options for metal additive manufacturing were also inspected, both for the purpose of understanding the problem to be solved, and to better understand the users and competition that are already present.

Conducting the research on this topic was relatively straightforward, as many reliable resources are available for this rapidly growing industry. The first step was going to the RepRap project online, as it has served as the basis for many highly successful FDM 3d printers [1]. This resulted in having a general idea of the high-level elements involved in the additive manufacturing process. From these elements a few key areas of interest were identified as areas that needed to be dove deeper into. Since the previous team had mostly sorted out the electronics, the key areas to look at were axis motion mechanics, and firmware. Another member of the team had expressed some level of familiarity with a firmware called Marlin, so that was the next stop for research. This was found to be a straightforward solution for the firmware elements, so after some information gathering from Marlin’s website, the mechanical and motion control elements were moved on to. For this, there was not a specific thank was already known, so it seemed that the best method was to search for educational resources on control of the parts that the previous team had chosen, as well as to look at existing metal 3d printers. This proved fruitful, as there were a couple of examples of similar projects, such as one published in the Journal of Mechanical Engineering Research and Developments. Additionally, information was found relating to exactly how the motion was being controlled which lined up with the existing prototype.

Some key findings resulted from this. The first of which is a result of looking at other metal additive manufacturing processes. Currently most options for additive metal manufacturing are either very precise, small-scale methods such as Direct Metal Laser Sintering—used by printers such as those produced by EOS [2]—or large-scale robotic arms paired with GMAW to construct larger structures [3]. Both of these systems are only accessible to larger facilities with significant funding to purchase and operate these systems. Meanwhile, there are existing prototypes for systems similar to the GMAW gantry-style printer, but these seem to be relegated to research or DIY at the moment, with no commercially successful options in the lower-market segment [4]. This lines up well with the current specifications and goals, aiming for a unit cost in the low five figures. regarding the construction of the existing prototype. Moving on, It was found separating the movement axes from a single mechanical stack into two separate movement systems, with the build area moving in one axis, and the gantry moving in the other two. According to the design guidelines in the RepRap Project, this both lowers the center of mass, and reduces the amount of mass that two of the three stepper motors must move around [1].  This lines up with the information and goals from our client meeting, indicating we will need to reassess the design of the gantry for the printer and revise the mechanical specifications accordingly.   Finally comes the software and firmware. Going off of the RepRap project and Marlin’s documentation essentially any Atmel AVR based microcontroller can be used to send signals to the stepper drivers already connected to. This includes most Arduino microcontrollers, like the one currently implemented in the prototype, so this likely does not need to change [1][5]. This is where we can adapt the previous team’s operating principles to build up a more integrated system, Ideally allowing a user to directly send 

Works Cited

1. “RepRap options,” RepRap, 12-Jun-2020. [Online]. Available: https://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap_Options. [Accessed: 19-Sep-2021].

2. “Metal 3D PRINTER: DMLS Printer: Additive manufacturing systems,” Metal 3D printer|DMLS Printer|Additive Manufacturing Systems. [Online]. Available: https://www.eos.info/en/additive-manufacturing/3d-printing-metal/eos-metal-systems. [Accessed: 19-Sep-2021]. 

3. T. Feucht, B. Waldschmitt, J. Lange, and M. Erven, “3D‐Printing with STEEL: Additive manufacturing of a bridge in situ,” ce/papers, vol. 4, no. 2-4, pp. 1695–1701, 2021. 

4. N. A. Rosli, M. R. Alkahari, F. R. Ramli, S. Maidin, M. N. Sudin, S. Subramoniam, and T. Furumoto, “Design and development of a low-cost 3d metal printer,” Journal of Mechanical Engineering Research and Developments, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 47–54, 2018. 

5. Jbrazio, “What is Marlin?,” Marlin Firmware, 14-Sep-2021. [Online]. Available: https://marlinfw.org/docs/basics/introduction.html. [Accessed: 19-Sep-2021].

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