HDPE plastic extruder design and control for 3D printing with plastic pellet feeding method

Abstract

3-Dimensional (3D) Printing Technology (3D printer) has become a Standard Acceleration Tool for Industry 4.0. Until now, 3D Printing system material melting technology has been using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) method. FDM is the melting of plastic materials through melting temperature and the formation of 3D objects in layer by layer manner. Meanwhile, the feeding for melting material is in the form of rolling filament. Currently, in this research FDM uses plastic pellete feeding method. Its exstrusion is called extruder, that is, plastic pellet processed through heater zone and pushed out by screw to the nozzle where the nozzle is a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) drives 3-Degree-of-Freedom (3DOF) applying cartesian axes. In this research, the printing uses high density polyethylene plastic pellete (HDPE). Temperature control in melting heater using proportional-integral-derivative (PID) method is controlled by microntroller and programmed through marlin firmware. The design and implementation result showed that the extruder system is capable to melt HDPE pellet at 200°C with heater power 300Watt and the screw can rotate to push out melted plastic at 2mm of nozzle.

The challenges associated with fused deposition modelling of high-density polyethylene for facial augmentation implants: a review

“…In screw-based FDM systems, there is less material degradation due to homogenous material melting and homogeneous material flow [54]. Setiawan et al [61] successfully processed neat HDPE granules in a screw-based FDM technology and reported that the extrusion system was able to consistently extrude the molten plastic material at relatively low melting temperatures. The study reported no inhomogeneous material deposition and no under-extrusions.…”

Development of a Pellet Extruder for Blending Different Materials and Study on the Properties of Eco-friendly Flame Retardant Materials Printed Using a Large-scale 3D Printer

“…In the development of re-retardant materials, there has been insu cient research on achieving adequate re-retardant performance and on deriving optimal performance through the use of various mixed ratios. [1] In this study, we aim to develop a pellet extruder capable of blending different materials and use it to print eco-friendly re-retardant materials with a large 3D printer, evaluating their characteristics. Unlike traditional 3D printing technology, which primarily uses single materials, this study aims to mix materials with different properties to impart new functionalities.…”