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Commercially available fused deposition modeling (FDM) printers have yet to bridge the gap between printing soft, flexible materials and printing hard, rigid materials. This work presents a custom printer solution, based on open-source hardware and software, which allows a user to print both flexible and rigid polymer materials. The materials printed include NinjaFlex, SemiFlex, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS), Nylon, and Polycarbonate. In order to print rigid materials, a custom, high-temperature heated bed was designed to act as a print stage. Additionally, high temperature extruders were included in the design to accommodate the printing requirements of both flexible and rigid filaments. Across 25 equally spaced points on the print plate, the maximum temperature difference between any two points on the heated bed was found to be ∼9°C for a target temperature of 170°C. With a uniform temperature profile across the plate, functional prints were achieved in each material. The print quality varied, dependent on material; however, the standard deviation of layer thicknesses and size measurements of the parts were comparable to those produced on a Zortrax M200 printer. After calibration and further process development, the custom printer will be integrated into the NEXUS system — a multiscale additive manufacturing instrument with integrated 3D printing and robotic assembly (NSF Award #1828355). 

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the flexure properties of ABS plastic in a 3D printed object as a process to enable embedded pressure sensing capabilities. Developing the potential for non-static 3D parts broadens the scope of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) process to include printing ‘smart’ objects that utilize intrinsic material properties to act as microphones, load sensors, accelerometers, etc. In order to demonstrate a strain-based pressure transducer, strain gauges were embedded either directly on top or in the middle of a flexible ABS diaphragm. Securing a strain gage directly on top of the diaphragm traced a reference pressure more closely than diaphragms with the strain gage embedded halfway into the diaphragm. To prevent temperature-related drift, an additional strain gage was suspended above the secured gage, inside the 3D printed cavity. The additional gage allowed for a half-bridge circuit in lieu of a quarter-bridge circuit, which minimized drift due to temperature change. The ABS diaphragm showed no significant signs of elastic hysteresis or nonlinear buckling. When sealed with 100% acetone, the diaphragm leaked ∼50x slower than as-printed sensors. After pressurizing and depressurizing the devices multiple times, they output pressure readouts that were consistent and repeatable for any given pressure within the operational range of 0 to 7psi. The repeatability of each of the final generation sensors indicates that ‘smart’ objects printed using an FDM process could be individually calibrated to make repeatable recordings. This work demonstrates a concept overlooked previous to now — FDM printed objects are not limited to static models, which lack dynamic motion of the part as an element of design. Altering FDM’s bottom-up process can allow for easily embedding sensing elements that result in printed objects which are functional on the mesoscale.