Final Design

Product Description

Background

3D Systems is a 3d printing-based company famous for their advanced printers: Figure 4.

The Figure 4 prints onto these trays and this generates a lot of resin stuck onto the trays.

Cleaning by hand is a tedious process, and human error can occur.

Dirty trays can damage the Figure 4 printers which cost the company $900 to replace.

CAD of the Loading Section

Machine Cleaning Process

Our machine quickly heats the resins to the critical temp. and then physically removes them from the trays.

4 Main Components

    Linear Rail

The tray is placed on the linear rail by resting in a carriage that is attached to the rail and is carried through the entire cleaning process.

The linear rail is driven by a stepper motor, and its motion is programmed through the Arduino Uno.

Once the machine has finished cleaning the tray, the tray comes out of the other end of the machine and is removed by the operator.

Then, the operator sends the carriage back the starting position for the next tray to be cleaned and the cycle repeats.

    Heating Station

The tray first enters a heating station which is composed of a halogen light bulb also controlled by the Arduino Uno

which turns it on when the tray enters the station and off when it leaves.

The tray completely stops at this station for 1 minute in order for the resin to sufficiently heat up.

The heating station is insulated with aluminum sheet metal and high temperature foam to protect the outermost acrylic embodiment.

The top of the heating station also has vents for the heat to dissipate.

    Wire Wheel Station

The tray then enters the mechanical removal station where a low rpm, cup wire brush removes the resin from the tray.

    Air Knife Station

Lastly, the tray enters the compressed air station where an air edger blows off any remaining resin left on the tray.

A large waste bin would be placed underneath the machine where it will collect the dust and debris.

    Why it Works

The resins used by 3D Systems are classified as thermosets, which are materials that soften but do not melt at high temperatures once cured.

This means the resins can be easily removed once they reach their respective critical temperatures (~330 F).

Example of a clean tray