There are many different Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies available which have been developed to large-scale use, mainly in the last decade. Today’s commercially
available rapid prototyping systems work with different techniques using paper, waxes, photocurable resins, polymers and new metal powders. This project is concerned with one type of rapid prototyping technology, namely fused deposition modelling, which was initially commercialised in 1991. A new version of the fused deposition modelling system using wax has been designed and used in this work. The present project describes the basic system design, and the method of wax deposition. The FDM machine builds the part by extruding semi-molten material through a
heated nozzle in a prescribed pattern onto a platform. The extrusion jet is mounted on a X-Y table which is controlled by a computer system. In conjunction with the automated control of the plunger mechanism and the depositor position, accurate models were produced. Single layers of wax were built up one on top of the other to produce two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. The characteristics of the wax were also analysed in order to optimise the model production process. These included wax phase change temperature, wax viscosity and wax droplet shape during processing.