A Brazilian 3D printing solution using pellets to provide a more efficient and cost-effective alternative, compared to traditional filament systems, through direct extrusion of pellets in a professional, but affordable, FDM printing system.
I'm Erik, a Undergraduate in Product Design at the State University of Maringá (UEM), Brazil.
This is a project that I have been silently sketching for about a year now (~2023), between home and at university. I'm currently developing this project as my Undergraduate thesis and expect to start uploading all additional information and project files soon. My goal from start was to achieve a fully functional and complete system, great for professional setups by providing a much more versatile and cost-effective alternative over filament-based systems, while also being affordable enough for the enthusiasts all over the world who constitutes a big portion of the 3D printing community. This affordable-but-actually-great aspect resonates deeply with my brazillian context, where machines and technology in general are typically expensive, as it tends to be mostly usually imported, than produced locally. This IS why I want to develop something Accessible-but-Great, attractive to enthusiasts yet well-suited for more professional usages for those who makes a living from 3D printing.
Of course, IT IS hard to achieve anything like 'one-size fits all' solutions. That's why I have been cooking this idea for so long, little and quick prototypes and experiments at home and at university, some sketches and drawings and lots of research. It's for sure a challenge to develop a system that is both affordable and proffessionally-suited, as the most robust and well-capable a system is the more expensive it tends to be. However, I also think and have seen (and possible you too) that this logic tends to be quite super-estimated and greatly exagerated, not saying that I think it's false, just that it isn't a rule of thumb and is often abused as an excuse for very high prices, which the majority of comes from labels like 'pro' or 'powered by AI'. Hence why I choose this project for my thesis (that may or may not end up contemplating the project as a whole, or just a part of it. I'll have to see how it goes, not a lot of spare time as I also need to work).
- What I aim is to have at least similar but better acessibility than a modern multi material speedy filament printer. So I'm all-in into beating this challenge up.
As I said, I understand the challenge, and maybe (possibly) there will be situations were compromises have to be made. However, if many things start going down that route, it's then very likely that what I end up doing will be spliting solutions by focus. My goal is to achieve the best I can in a single system (of course, not accounting for perifferals and accessories that may exist), but it's very possible that my expectations ends up proven too unfeaseble to meet in single system. So I may end up going with two different solutions: the very best I could fit in a general-public acessible solution, and then a professional solution.