MIG Based Metal Additive Manufacturing System

Project Title

MIG Based Metal Additive Manufacturing System

Project Area of Specialization 3D/4D PrintingProject Summary

Our final year project will be a MIG welding-based Metal Additive manufacturing system so to put it simply this will be a Metal 3D printer. It will utilize locally available MIG welding plants and utilize it as a metal deposition mechanism, and we will develop a 3-Dimensional traveling mechanism. It will be able to fabricate basic and straightforward parts out of metal by taking their CAD files as input.

This design is kept in mind to be reproducible. The main motivation to incorporate a MIG welding machine is to produce a Metal Additive manufacturing system on a constrained budget and allow the production and prototyping of weight-efficient parts with all the advantages of Additive manufacturing and generative design.

To produce this project, we will be attempting to utilize parts that usually are used to make CNCs machines such as aluminum profiles, Ball screws/Lead screws, Linear Rails, servo motors, and CNC controllers. As this system won’t be similar to average 3D printers and will require looking after a lot more variables while metal deposition, we might need to produce our own Slicer software that will be able to generate G-code based on our specification of layer height, temperature control, and feeding rate.

At the end of our project, we are hoping to produce a fully functional Metal 3D printer that could print Metal parts that will have a printing volume of a minimum of 500mm x 500mm x 500mm.

Project Objectives

The Project hopes to accomplish the following

Affordability: The main objective of this project is to make metal 3D printing affordable and accessible. Typically, a normal Metal 3D printer are around 100,000 $ (2,000,000 Pkr), our project will cost around 1,000$ (200,000 Pkr).

Generative Design: Generative designs are made to reduce the weight and only utilize the minimum amount of material required to accomplish the task. They are most efficient when produced through additive manufacturing.

Rapid Prototyping: An additive manufacturing system is always faster than any subtractive manufacturing process, allowing for rapid prototyping and testing.

Proficiency in Manufacturing System Hardware: One of the objectives of this project is to increase our knowledge of Manufacturing systems and our proficiency in utilizing equipment and successfully creating a Metal Additive manufacturing system.

Retrofitting existing Slicers: Since this is not a regular Additive manufacturing system this would need to be optimized by the feeds and temperatures exclusive to our system.

Project Implementation Method

The given flowchart shows the Project implementation process. Following is implementation process listed

1. Project Initiation
   1.  Literature Review
   2. Finalizing the specifications of the project
   3. Research on material properties for welding
   4. Research on slicing software
2. Design stage
   1. Initial Design
   2. Manufacturable Design
   3. Research on market available MIG welding machines
   4. Final Design Review
3. Manufacturing Stage
   1. Procurement of Parts (Profiles, servos Linear Rails)
   2. Procurement for MIG welding machine
   3. Fabricating Custom parts from Assembly
   4. Assembly
4. Optimizing Stage
   1. Testing Hardware
   2. Optimizing opensource slicing software
   3. Testing and optimizing parameters for different materials
   4. Review of Design and software and refinement
5. Project Completion
   1. Attempt fabrication of exclusive additive manufacturing models
   2. Attempt the fabrication of optimized generative design
   3. Project Presentation
6. Project Completion
    

Benefits of the Project

Following is a flow chart that depicts the Benefits of the Project

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

TECHNICAL DETAILS:

• Print capacity of 1.5x1.5x1.5 feet
• Uses MIG torch
• With automatic control of weld material flow
• 3 axis moment
• Based on aluminum or steel profiles
• Cost of 80,000 Pkr

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemCore Industry ManufacturingOther Industries Education , Transportation , Others Core Technology 3D/4D PrintingOther Technologies RoboticsSustainable Development Goals Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Responsible Consumption and ProductionRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	77500
X-Axis Servo Motor	Equipment	1	6000	6000
Y-Axis Servo Motor	Equipment	1	6000	6000
Z-Axis Servo Motor	Equipment	1	4000	4000
Servo Motor controllers	Equipment	3	3000	9000
Power supply	Equipment	1	3500	3500
MIG Station	Equipment	1	17000	17000
MIG Wires and Tubes	Equipment	1	2000	2000
MIG Welding Filament	Miscellaneous	1	5000	5000
Aluminum Profiles	Equipment	1	1000	1000
Linear Rails	Equipment	1	16000	16000
Fasteners	Equipment	1	3000	3000
Manufacturing Services	Miscellaneous	1	5000	5000