Large Scale 3D-Printers: The Challenge of Outgrowing Do-It-Yourself Villmer, Franz-Josef Witte, Lars Padoano, Elio Villmer, Franz-Josef Department of Production Engineering and Management Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe 3D printing FLM build envelope large-scale thermoplastic polymers Many low-cost 3D printers have been brought to market over the last couple of years. Most of them apply a Fused Layer Manufacturing (FLM) process, and have made 3D printing a great success amongst hobbyists, the maker community and students. One drawback of such inexpensive equipment is a limited build envelope, which prevents this from becoming a significant contributor to industrial production. To overcome these limits, it is not sufficient to simply upscale dimensions, but the overall concept of such machines must be completely re-thought, as well as the concepts behind several building blocks, components and the process software system. Problems such as shrinkage of build material, support material and machine parts in combination with long printer head travels, temperature distribution and moisture effects all have to be solved. In addition, larger parts need longer process times. Therefore, reduction of process times and an increase in productivity are necessary in order to enable economic production. Some of these problems can be solved by using more than one printer head for production, by using new materials and inventing new nozzle systems as distinct solutions for big printers. Nevertheless, to solve all these problems, the development of special machines for large parts is necessary: not component-wise but as a whole system. Large parts could then be successfully produced in several industries, using large, inexpensive FLMmachines. 2015 info:eu-repo/semantics/conferenceObject doc-type:conferenceObject text http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794 https://www.th-owl.de/elsa/record/585 Villmer F-J, Witte L. Large Scale 3D-Printers: The Challenge of Outgrowing Do-It-Yourself. In: Padoano E, Villmer F-J, Department of Production Engineering and Management, eds. <i>Production Engineering and Management</i>. Lemgo; 2015:111-122. eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/isbn/978-3-941645-11-0 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess