High-Efficiency Solar-Powered 3-D Printers for Sustainable Development

Gwamuri, Jephias; Franco, Dhiogo C. R.; Khan, Khalid; Gauchía, Lucía; Pearce, Joshua M.

doi:10.3390/machines4010003

Cited by 39 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Building upon the simulations detailed here, Gwamuri et al (2016) fabricated and tested a PV-powered 3-D printer that performed as required under all conditions including: charging the battery and running the 3-D printer, printing under low-solar-insolation conditions, battery powered 3-D printing, PV charging the battery only and battery fully charged with PV-powered 3-D printing. The results show the promise of solar-powered 3-D printing systems providing feasibility for adoption in off-grid rural communities (Gwamuri et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussion and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-sufficiency of 3-D printers: utilizing stand-alone solar photovoltaic power systems

2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) is a type of 3-D printer capable of printing many of its own components in addition to a wide assortment of products from high-value scientific or medical tools to household products and toys. There is some evidence that these printers could provide low-cost distributed manufacturing in underprivileged rural areas. For the most isolated communities without access to the electric grid, a low-cost alternative energy is needed. Solar energy can be harvested through a stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) power system specifically designed to match the needs of the RepRap. The voltage and current requirement for the printer demands the use of buck along with a bidirectional DC converters to ensure proper operation. This paper provides the design for a stand-alone PV-lithium ion battery power system with an efficient controller. Robust and agile PI controller schemes are utilized to efficiently maintain the distribution of energy through the power system. The system was defined with ordinary differential equations, simulated and tested for two operational conditions in MATLAB/Simulink. The results showed that the controller developed operates the system in a stable condition and the simulation shows steady acceptable behavior that makes this system highly suitable for hardware implementation.

show abstract

Section: Discussion and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-sufficiency of 3-D printers: utilizing stand-alone solar photovoltaic power systems

2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These increases are likely to continue in the medium-term future, but as shown here the electrical portion of the total cost of distributed manufacturing is minor. In addition, several solar-powered 3-D printing systems have been developed [100,101] that would eliminate that price increase directly.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributed Manufacturing of Flexible Products: Technical Feasibility and Economic Viability

Woern

Pearce

2017

Technologies

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Distributed manufacturing even at the household level is now well established with the combined use of open source designs and self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) 3-D printers. Previous work has shown substantial economic consumer benefits for producing their own polymer products. Now flexible filaments are available at roughly 3-times the cost of more conventional 3-D printing materials. To provide some insight into the potential for flexible filament to be both technically feasible and economically viable for distributed digital manufacturing at the consumer level this study investigates 20 common flexible household products. The 3-D printed products were quantified by print time, electrical energy use and filament consumption by mass to determine the cost to fabricate with a commercial RepRap 3-D printer. Printed parts were inspected and when necessary tested for their targeted application to ensure technical feasibility. Then, the experimentally measured cost to DIY manufacturers was compared to low and high market prices for comparable commercially available products. In addition, the mark-up and potential for long-term price declines was estimated for flexible filaments by converting thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) pellets into filament and reground TPE from a local recycling center into filament using an open source recyclebot. This study found that commercial flexible filament is economically as well as technically feasible for providing a means of distributed home-scale manufacturing of flexible products. The results found a 75% savings when compared to the least expensive commercially equivalent products and 92% when compared to high market priced products. Roughly, 160 flexible objects must be substituted to recover the capital costs to print flexible materials. However, as previous work has shown the Lulzbot Mini 3-D printer used in this study would provide more than a 100% ROI printing one object a week from hard thermoplastics, the upgrade needed to provide flexible filament capabilities can be accomplished with 37 average substitution flexible prints. This, again easily provides a triple digit return on investment printing one product a week. Although these savings, which are created by printing objects at home are substantial, the results also have shown the savings could be further increased to 93% when the use of a pellet extruder and TPE pellets, and 99% if recycled TPE filament made with a recyclebot is used. The capital costs of a recyclebot can be recovered in the manufacturing of about 9 kg of TPE filament, which can be accomplished in less than a week, enabling improved environmental impact as well as a strong financial return for heavy 3-D printer users.

show abstract

“…Each module has an effective area of 0.2613 m 2 and produces 30 W of power. According to the energy requirement of initial heating, it requires a battery that has an output of 0.06 kW to finish within 1 h. An identical small battery system for the off-grid 3-D printer [36] was used. The storage battery access allows the recyclebot to work, even in the absence of solar energy (e.g., during cloudy weather).…”

Section: Solar Photovoltaic Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Payback Time of a Solar Photovoltaic Powered Waste Plastic Recyclebot System

2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The growth of both plastic consumption and prosumer 3-D printing are driving an interest in producing 3-D printer filaments from waste plastic. This study quantifies the embodied energy of a vertical DC solar photovoltaic (PV) powered recyclebot based on life cycle energy analysis and compares it to horizontal AC recyclebots, conventional recycling, and the production of a virgin 3-D printer filament. The energy payback time (EPBT) is calculated using the embodied energy of the materials making up the recyclebot itself and is found to be about five days for the extrusion of a poly lactic acid (PLA) filament or 2.5 days for the extrusion of an acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filament. A mono-crystalline silicon solar PV system is about 2.6 years alone. However, this can be reduced by over 96% if the solar PV system powers the recyclebot to produce a PLA filament from waste plastic (EPBT is only 0.10 year or about a month). Likewise, if an ABS filament is produced from a recyclebot powered by the solar PV system, the energy saved is 90.6-99.9 MJ/kg and 26.33-29.43 kg of the ABS filament needs to be produced in about half a month for the system to pay for itself. The results clearly show that the solar PV system powered recyclebot is already an excellent way to save energy for sustainable development.

show abstract

High-Efficiency Solar-Powered 3-D Printers for Sustainable Development

Cited by 39 publications

References 36 publications

Self-sufficiency of 3-D printers: utilizing stand-alone solar photovoltaic power systems

Self-sufficiency of 3-D printers: utilizing stand-alone solar photovoltaic power systems

Distributed Manufacturing of Flexible Products: Technical Feasibility and Economic Viability

Energy Payback Time of a Solar Photovoltaic Powered Waste Plastic Recyclebot System

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About