Towards design of mechanical part and electronic control of multi-material/multicolor fused deposition modeling 3D printing

Additive manufacturing (AM) is an important, rapidly emerging, manufacturing technology that takes the information from a computer-aided design (CAD) and builds parts in a layer-by-layer style. Thus, since the development of 3D printing, the fused deposition modeling (FDM) is one of the most promising and inexpensive techniques for shaping free-form parts. It used a thermoplastic filament as a starting material to extrude, layer by layer, the suitable 3D object. It is assisted by a large community of developers, searchers, and users and with multiple free hardware and software open sources expanding the scope of its applications. However, in this process, printing objects with multi-materials and multicolors becomes a major challenge for most extrusion system of printing platforms. For example, in case it is required to print multi-material and multicolored parts, a high-quality head extruder should be used. The main objective of this work is to show the importance of proposing a new extruder system of printing parts with multicolors and materials. For this purpose, in the present paper, the different extrusion systems capable of printing parts with multicolors and materials were presented. The operating principle of each extrusion system is well explained through functional diagrams. Then, its advantages and disadvantages are cited. Finally, some prospects for improving these systems are presented and that will be the work of the next paper.