Fab@Home: the personal desktop fabricator kit

Abstract

Solid freeform fabrication has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing, perhaps even to allow consumers to customize and manufacture goods cost-effectively in their own home. At present, the florescence of the technology is limited by a "chicken and egg" paradox. There is insufficient consumer demand and too narrow a range of applications for SFF systems to allow mass production to reduce their cost and complexity. At the same time, consumer applications for, demand for, and indeed awareness of SFF technology is limited by its high cost and complexity. We posit that just as the personal computer revolution was spurred by development of computer kits, getting SFF technology into the hands of hobbyists and hackers will simultaneously generate applications for, and improvements to it. To this end, we have developed the Fab@Home personal SFF kit, and are developing a user-group website to promote exchange of ideas and improvements. The designs and software for Fab@Home will be freely distributed, and constructing a first generation kit should cost roughly $2000. The kit design and a working unit will be presented, along with our experience deploying a unit for public use.

3D food printing—An innovative way of mass customization in food fabrication

“…The Fab@Home system, although not specifically designed for food applications, was one of the universal desktop fabricators compatible with food materials [14] . Millen from Massey University [15] integrated Frostruder MK2 on MakerBot platform to extrude frost, where two solenoid valves were used to control the flow rate of creamy peanut butter, jelly, and Nu- Figure 1 shows a food printing platform with a printhead developed at the National University of Singapore.…”

Electrokinetic devices from polymeric materials

“…Examples of materials printed with this type of printer are silicones, biomaterials including cells, frosting, and conductive polymers. 38,42,[45][46][47] An object composed of several types of materials can be constructed during a single printing run by simultaneously using multiple syringe barrels. The limits on the size of the object printed depend on the tip size, the material properties, and the accuracy of the printer.…”

“…44 In comparison, syringe-based printers can extrude both high and low viscosity material. 42 Syringe-based printers extrude material through a tip attached to a syringe barrel, where the pressure on the piston can be controlled. Examples of materials printed with this type of printer are silicones, biomaterials including cells, frosting, and conductive polymers.…”

“…38,40 Over time, 3D printers have evolved from expensive tools available only to a few experts to low-cost machines accessible to everyone. 38,[40][41][42] There are several types of 3D printers with different deposition methods, described in the following chapter. The quality of the final printed object depends on the material, the calibration of the deposition tool's parameters, and the type of printer used.…”

“…Open-source and cheap printers e.g., RepRap and Fab@home, usually produce lower-quality objects, usually sufficient for prototyping and research. 41,42 These types of printers allow a lot of freedom in terms of the use of various (commercial and non-commercial) materials and the possibility to modify the printer to suit specific applications. The dimensions of the printed object can be in the range of a few millimeters up to 25 cm for a cheap desktop printer.…”