Robotic Extruder for ABB IRB 2400

A custom 3D printing extruder attachment designed, built and programmed from scratch for a six-axis ABB IRB 2400 industrial robot arm — hardware, electronics and toolpath software.

Desktop printers cap the work at the size of their build volume. Mounting a purpose-built extruder on a robot arm removes that limit and allows printing onto large tensioned textile frames, with full control of approach angle and print orientation.

The tool was developed iteratively: extrusion and temperature control, mounting and calibration to the robot flange, then custom toolpath generation and testing against real textile substrates.