Exploring the Manufacturability and Resistivity of Conductive Filament Used in Material Extrusion Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) has the unique ability to build multifunctional parts with embedded electronics without the need for post-print assembly. However, many existing forms of multifunctional AM are not easily accessible to hobby-level users. Most hobby-level desktop 3D printers are only used with non-conductive filaments. Recently however, conductive filaments have become increasingly available for material extrusion desktop printers. Ideally, the use of these filaments would allow circuitry to be printed simultaneously with the rest of the structure, enabling complex, inexpensive, multifunctional structures. However, the resistivity of conductive filament is significantly impacted by the geometry of the print and the printing parameters used in the build process. In this study, two types of commercially-available conductive filament were tested under a variety of parameters. It was found that print temperature, layer height, and orientation all significantly affect the resistivity in various ways. The knowledge from this research will allow users to design better multifunctional parts that have reduced resistivity.