Design and construction of a droplet based manufacturing machine

In this paper a system is introduced which makes 3D parts and patterns. These patterns are made up of metal droplets. The raw material is in the shape of wire. Molten droplets are generated in the droplet generator nozzle and deposit on a substrate having proper deposition rate, temperature and volume. By settlement of droplets on certain places beside and over each other in several layers, arbitrary 3D object is constructed. 60%Sn/ 40%Pb alloy is used as raw material in the experiments and it is possible to use different wires with various diameters and materials with a little change in the apparatus. Here the design essence of the constructed droplet based manufacturing machine is investigated. Furthermore the dependency of drop volume to apparatus factors is presented. Knowing the drop size is essential in making samples. Drop size is dependent to nozzle diameter, nozzle temperature and wire-feed velocity. Temperature and deposition rate of droplets are controlled in the system. Some droplets and simple parts that are produced by this apparatus are presented too.