Mechanical Vibration Analysis of a Gantry 3D Printer

The accuracy and quality of 3D printing with FDM technology depends on many factors: type of material, environment, software and 3D printer mechanics. An important role is given to the mechanical design of a 3D printer, since low rigidity of the entire system increases influence of mechanical vibrations on printing accuracy and limits its capabilities. In this work we present a methodology for assessing the quality of a gantry 3D printer exemplified by Anycubic i3 Mega. The main evaluation criteria are frequency and amplitude of vibrations resulting from the resonance on the natural frequencies of the printer. Modal analysis was performed using Fusion 360 software to obtain the natural frequencies and associated displacements of the 3D printer. The results indicate that the natural frequencies of a 3D printer have a strong impact on high-speed printing accuracy. Also, the model in Fusion 360 was incapable of predicting some low-frequency high-amplitude vibrations.