Case Study on the Impact of Merging 3D Printing with IoT
IoT is becoming a familiar solution to consumers looking to enjoy a modern Smart Home experience. However, being able to automate lights and HVAC systems in your home through your smartphone is just scraping the surface of the true power of IoT. Applying these systems to drive metrics and automations on the commercial and industrial level provide much deeper value. These real-time automations allow businesses to reach new levels of net process efficiencies that have never been realized.
Photo: Mobinius — Industry 4.0 and IoT
The story and promise of 3D printing is similar. While consumer brands have garnered the majority of media coverage in the 3D printing industry over the last several years, it is actually the commercial and industrial additive manufacturing applications which are proving to be much more disruptive to the overall economy. From medical applications to long-tail inventory coverage to enabling production of complex parts for the aerospace industry, 3D printing has found a multitude of critical applications in the commercial and industrial sectors which provide enormous benefit to society.
This case study discusses the merger of these two technologies at the commercial scale, reflecting the data we (SD3D) have gathered through operations at our 3D printing production facilities in San Diego, CA and Dallas, TX. Throughout this case study we will be discussing and providing data based on the current state of development which is ongoing and improving daily.
Factory Temperature Control
Starting in San Diego, we placed a multi-sensor inside of our eight printer rack enclosure to record the frequency of hitting temperature swings in excess of one degree from hour to hour. Large temperature swings increase the likelihood of production defects on FDM printers, particularly when using materials with high shrinkage rates such as ABS and PC.
As you can see in Chart 1, 74% of these high temperature swing recordings occur between the hours of 6am and 6pm. This is also the window of peak-energy use hours for SDG&E, the providers of our electricity in San Diego. Meaning, our baseline electricity cost during those hours increases by up to 50%, with additional fees tacked on based on our peak usage during that window.
Because of this, we now opt to print with low temperature – low shrinkage materials such as PLA during the day and transition the production line to higher energy, higher shrinkage materials at night when energy is cheaper and the facility temperatures are more stable.
Excessive Temperature Swings by Time of Day
Chart 1. San Diego Temperature Swings Greater than 1° F
Over the last year we saved 32% on our electricity bills by transitioning our material usage based on energy cost and environmental stability. Furthermore, we simultaneously shaved off peak energy inflection points by reducing the power draw of auxiliary equipment such as our HVAC system, fans, dehumidifiers, etc. For us that meant a net savings of approximately $2,688 last year in San Diego across a dozen active 3D printers on a 1,400 square foot production floor.
Managing Air Quality
Another unique aspect in which we have applied IoT to our factory floor in San Diego is the implementation of air quality control. Prior to implementing any air quality control measures, the concentration of ultrafine particles (UFP) was tested at multiple locations at our facility.
Chart 2: UFP Concentration Inside and Outside San Diego Production Facility – No filter
What this showed us is that the concentrations of harmful particles was extremely high inside of the printer rack. However, on the factory floor the level of harmful particles reduced quickly as you near the entrance of the building. At peak concentration inside of the printer rack, it was essentially the equivalent of walking around a densely congested six lane freeway at rush hour.
Improve Safety Conditions
To improve the safety conditions in our work environment, we implemented a dual stage HEPA filtration. This system was designed to circulates the air inside of the printer rack and capture the harmful particles in a dual-stage filter. Afterwards we conducted the study again and found that particle levels inside of the rack fell to acceptable levels within 60 seconds of turning on the filter. To preserve the life of the filter and reduce energy usage we implemented IoT automations to only turn the filtration system on if someone is presently on the factory floor. These automations have improved the life of the filters by approximately 4x and save us $462 per year in replacement filter costs when compared to running the system continuously.
Image 1. 3D Printer Rack Dual Stage HEPA Filtration System
So without even touching the improvements we have made to 3D printing specific processes, we have shown a net savings of $3,150 per year by implementing these general IoT automations throughout our San Diego facility to reduce energy and maintenance costs.
Merging Industrial IOT with FDM 3D Printing
The next step we took was developing the data structure required to turn an FDM 3D printer into an IoT device. Furthermore, we needed the 3D printer to be capable of communicating bi-directionally with other devices on the factory floor. All of these devices would need to utilize a centralized database to perform networked machine learning that dynamically updates the automations in real time.
To accommodate these requirements, we developed the Filtracker plugin for Octoprint and the corresponding material QR database. We also worked with the IoT experts at Locbit to develop a SCADA application capable of implementing advanced 3D printing automations on our factory floor.
Our Filtracker plugin streamlines the 3D printing workflow by automatically slicing and printing files with the proper settings for the material that is currently loaded on the printer. This workflow is further optimized by tracking print success rates network-wide and fine-tuning material profile settings based on historical data. Using this workflow, we are therefore able to eliminate the requirement of manually slicing each job that gets sent through our sales automation platform – Printelize.
IoT Can be Used to Bridge Between Systems
The connection between Printelize and Filtracker can be configured to allow direct pass through of 3D print job files to properly configured 3D printers upon satisfying a specific job status (ie. approved and/or paid).
These savings will become even more significant as we continue to build out our 3D printer production facilities in San Diego, Dallas and LA.
Summary
In summary, these savings will allow us to offer lower pricing for high volume 3D printing production. This will push additive manufacturing into new applications that are not currently economically viable.
Perhaps most exciting is realizing that we are still in the early days of merging IoT with 3D printing. This case study covers the current state of development, however, these integrated systems are rapidly improving on a daily basis. We are endeavoring into a new chapter of industrialization. The benefits of implementing automated 3D print production lines that provide just-in-time production for on-demand parts have never been clearer. The most disruptive implementations of this new Industry 4.0 are undoubtedly yet to come.
