Experiments in 3D Printing Electric Motors

Alex Ellery; Abdurr Elaskri; Mariappan Parans Paranthaman; Fabrice Bernier

doi:10.3390/machines13080679

Experiments in 3D Printing Electric Motors

Alex Ellery
, Abdurr Elaskri
, Mariappan Parans Paranthaman
, Fabrice Bernier

Nanomaterials Chemistry Group

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

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 a rotor with soft magnetic properties, for which we adopted ProtoPasta^TM, 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 of the motor. We have demonstrated that DC electric motors can be 3D printed and 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.

Original language	English
Article number	679
Journal	Machines
Volume	13
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/machines13080679
State	Published - Aug 2025

Funding

This work was partly supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, Wind Energy Technologies Office Program. This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle LLC under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript or allow others to do so, for US Government purposes. The DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan. All the authors have no competing financial interests. We wish to thank Kevin Sankar at Carleton University for running repeat experiments with the fully 3D printed motor. The authors have reviewed and edited the output and take full responsibility for the content of this publication.

Keywords

3D printed motor
additive manufacturing
self-replicating machines
universal constructor

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10.3390/machines13080679

Cite this

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abstract = "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 a 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 of the motor. We have demonstrated that DC electric motors can be 3D printed and 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.",

keywords = "3D printed motor, additive manufacturing, self-replicating machines, universal constructor",

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Experiments in 3D Printing Electric Motors

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