Fused Filament Fabrication is a widely used additive manufacturing technique for the 3D printing of parts and sensors. This technique is prone to fabrication errors and defects. Printing Electro Tomography, a 3D printing-specific adaptation of Electrical Impedance Tomography, is a technique that measures resistance through a part as it is being printed. This research explores the implementation and validation of a multi-node frequency multiplexed PET technique with electrodes implemented into the printing surface of the 3D printer.
A working prototype was constructed, together with a signal processing pipeline for the calculation of resistances. The performance of the system was validated by printing different test designs in conductive PLA. These include tests for accuracy, reliability, and spatial resolution.
It is concluded that the multi-node frequency multiplexed system measures part conductance accurately and reliably, showing expected behaviour. The measurement method provides improved information, as it allows for the simultaneous measurement of multiple resistance paths in the print. A limit of this setup is the loss of measurement information when printing more layers in the z-direction. Recommendations are given to reduce this limitation, together with suggestions for further improvement.