Development of a Low-Cost Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3-D Desktop Printer

A low cost Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D printer was designed and fabricated, using in part local materials. The printer was based on the open source Replicating Rapid Prototyping (RepRap) design. The Arduino (Integrated Development Environment) IDE board was used for the implementation, and it uses the Repetier-Host software for the slicing and the printing operations. The print volume of the printer is 95 mm x 90 mm x 80 mm, and the printer uses the Polylactic Acid (PLA) filament. The optimum conditions to print the PLA material were achieved at a print temperature of 210 ºC; for a print speed of 55 mm/s and a layer height of 0.2 mm. At these conditions, the dimensional deviation of the printed object from the CAD model was an average of 0.05 mm. Further developmental activities, with the use of more locally sourced materials, may help boost the local economy, in accordance with the Nigerian local content act