Uncertainty Analysis and Innovation of an FDM 3D Printer

As a final project for OPT245: Precision Instrument Design, we were tasked with performing an uncertainty analysis for the positioning of the print head on a Creality Ender 3 3D printer and then providing solutions to improve this uncertainty analysis. An "improvement" in this case depicts one of two scenarios:

1) The positioning uncertainty of the print head is improved at a similar price point

2) There is added functionality to the 3D printer while maintaining the current positioning uncertainty

My report explores increasing the resolution of the motion stages to satisfy the first of these criteria and explores adding a distance measuring interferometer to add perturbation insensitivity to the printer to satisfy the second of these criteria.