Experiments in 3D Printing Electric Motors

This paper catalogues a series of experiments we conducted to explore how to 3D print a DC electric motor. The individual parts of the electric motor were 3D printed but assembled by hand. First, we focused on the rotor with soft magnetic properties for which we adopted ProtoPastaTM which is a commercial off-the-shelf PLA filament incorporating iron particles. Second, we focused on the stator permanent magnets which were 3D printed through binder jetting. Third, we focused on the wire coils for which we adopted a form of laminated object manufacture of copper wire. The chief challenge was in 3D printing the coils because the winding density is crucial to the performance on the motor. We have demonstrated that DC electric motors can be 3D printed as assembled into a functional system. Although the performance was poor due to the wiring problem, we showed that the other 3D printing processes were consistent with high performance. Nevertheless, we demonstrated the principle of 3D printing electric motors. We regard this as a significant step towards implementing universal construction and, by proxy, self-replicating machines.