Challenges in Sustainability | 2014 | Volume 2 | Issue 1 | Pages 18‒27
DOI: 10.12924/cis2014.02010018
Research Article
Mobile Open-Source Solar-Powered 3-D Printers for
Distributed Manufacturing in Off-Grid Communities
Debbie L. King
1
, Adegboyega Babasola
1
, Joseph Rozario
1,2
, and Joshua M. Pearce
1,2,3,*
1
The Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology Lab, Michigan Technological University, 601 M&M Building,
1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931-1295, United States; E-Mail: [email protected] (DLK),
2
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Michigan Technological University, 601 M&M Building,
1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931-1295, United States
3
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Michigan Technological University, 601 M&M Building,
1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931-1295, United States
* Corresponding Author: E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +1 9064871466
Submitted: 27 May 2014 | In revised form: 25 August 2014 | Accepted: 28 August 2014 |
Published: 30 September 2014
Abstract: Manufacturing in areas of the developing world that lack electricity severely restricts the
technical sophistication of what is produced. More than a billion people with no access to electricity
still have access to some imported higher-technologies; however, these often lack customization and
often appropriateness for their community. Open source appropriate technology (OSAT) can over-
come this challenge, but one of the key impediments to the more rapid development and distri-
bution of OSAT is the lack of means of production beyond a specific technical complexity. This study
designs and demonstrates the technical viability of two open-source mobile digital manufacturing
facilities powered with solar photovoltaics, and capable of printing customizable OSAT in any com-
munity with access to sunlight. The first, designed for community use, such as in schools or maker-
spaces, is semi-mobile and capable of nearly continuous 3-D printing using RepRap technology,
while also powering multiple computers. The second design, which can be completely packed into a
standard suitcase, allows for specialist travel from community to community to provide the ability to
custom manufacture OSAT as needed, anywhere. These designs not only bring the possibility of
complex manufacturing and replacement part fabrication to isolated rural communities lacking
access to the electric grid, but they also offer the opportunity to leap-frog the entire conventional
manufacturing supply chain, while radically reducing both the cost and the environmental impact of
products for developing communities.
Keywords: Appropriate Technology; Distributed Manufacturing; Open Source Hardware;
Photovoltaic; Solar Energy; 3D-Printing
© 2014 by the authors; licensee Librello, Switzerland. This open access article was published
under a Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
1. Introduction
Modern energy access is still far from universal, as 1.4
billion people lack access to electricity [1], which di-
rectly contributes to multidimensional poverty through-
out these regions [2]. Although two-fifths of South
Asia's population, primarily living in rural areas, have
no access to the grid, more than three quarters of the
population of Sub-Saharan Africa (587 million people)
in both rural and urban areas are without electricity
[3]. This situation appears to be static as rural elec-
trification is a major challenge [4] and as the Inter-
national Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that if rural
electrification continues at the present rate, electricity
access will only keep pace with population growth
until 2030 [1]. Although some manufacturing occurs in
communities without access to electricity, the technical
sophistication of what is produced is limited. People
with no access to electricity still have access to some
higher-technologies, which are imported and lack all
customization and often appropriateness for the
community. Considering only energy-related devices,
for example, throughout the developing world there are
broken windmills and micro-hydropower installations,
empty biogas pits, rusting charcoal kilns, and unused
solar cookers [5] or tractors and water pumps in poor
condition [6]. Often the local failure of such tech-
nologies, which are employed in many communities, is
the lack of appropriateness for a specific community
(e.g. difficulties in access to parts and capacity to
perform repairs, evolutionary capacity of the tech-
nology, predetermining risk factors) [6‒8]. Thus there
is a need to ensure appropriate technology (AT) is
used, this can be defined as those technologies that
are easily and economically put to use from resources
readily available to local communities, whose needs
they meet [9]. The technologies must also comply
with environmental, cultural, economic, and educa-
tional resource constraints in the local community [9].
Earlier definitions of AT have recently been extended
by Sianipar et al. to include technical, economic,
environmental, social, cultural, judicial, and political
specifications [8]. To meet these requirements the
diffusion of information technologies (e.g. cell phones
and the Internet) has enabled a commons-based open
design or 'open source' method to accelerate
development of AT [10‒12]. In parallel to the open
source movement in software, open source ap-
propriate technology (OSAT) is gaining momentum as
it allows technology users to be developers simul-
taneously and share the open "source code" of their
physical AT designs, and to use this ability as a
science and engineering education aid [13‒20]. OSAT
is AT that is shared digitally and developed using OS
principles. Thus, rather than computer programs, the
"source code" for AT is material lists, directions,
specifications, designs, 3-D CAD, techniques, and
scientific theories needed to build, operate, and main-
tain it. One of the key impediments to the more rapid
development of OSAT is the lack of means of pro-
duction of open source technologies beyond a specific
technical complexity.
This barrier is being challenged by the rise of open
manufacturing with open-source 3-D printers [21],
affordable versions of which are capable of replicating
any three dimensional object in a number of polymers
and resins [22‒25]. The most striking of these 3-D
printers is the RepRap, so named because it can fab-
ricate roughly half of its own components and is thus
on the path of becoming a self-replicating rapid
prototyper [23‒24]. Recent work has shown enormous
potential for open-source 3-D printers to assist in
driving sustainable development via digital fabrication
and customization [26]. For example, there is cur-
rently a collection of open source designs useful for
sustainable development [27] including peristaltic
pumps, hemostats, and water wheels on Thingiverse,
a repository of digital designs of real physical objects
[28‒30]. Most importantly RepRaps allow users in any
location the ability to custom manufacture products
that meet their own needs and desires.
In order for rural communities to have access to
the benefits of 3-D printing of OSAT they will need
electric power from locally available renewable
resources such as solar photovoltaic (PV) technology
which converts sunlight directly into electricity. PV has
already been shown to be a technically viable,
environmentally benign, socially-acceptable and in-
creasingly economical method of providing electricity
to both on grid and remote communities all over the
world [31‒37]. Solar PV-generated electricity is par-
ticularly well suited for small scale off-grid applications
because of the relatively modest power draws of open-
source 3-D printers, and it will be addressed here.
This paper provides a description and analysis of i)
mobile community-scale and ii) ultra-portable open-
source solar-powered 3-D printers including component
summary, testing procedures, and an analysis of
energy performance. The devices were tested using
three case study prints of varying complexity appro-
priate for developing community applications, while
measuring electricity consumption. Results of this
preliminary proof of concept and technical evaluation of
the use of solar PV to power mobile RepRaps for
distributed customized manufacturing are evaluated
and conclusions are drawn.
2. Methods
2.1. RepRap Background
RepRaps can currently print with ABS, poly-
caprolactone, polyactic acid (PLA), and HDPE among
other plastics and generally cost between $30‒50 kg
‒1
[23,25]. PLA, which is used here for tests, fits the
definition of AT as it is derived from renewable sources,
is recyclable and bio-degradable. In addition, printed
PLA with a RepRap has been shown to be as strong as
19
commercial prints [38]. The extruder intakes a
filament of the working material, heats it, and extrudes
it through a nozzle. The printer uses a three co-
ordinate system, where each axis involves a stepper
motor that makes the axis move and a limit switch
which prevents further movement along the axis. The
printing process uses sequential layer deposition,
where the extruder nozzle deposits a 2-D layer of the
working material, then the Z (vertical) axis lowers,
and the extruder deposits another layer on top of the
first. In this way it can build three dimensional models
from a series of two dimensional layers. It should be
noted that other heads are under development that
would allow for a greater range of deposition
materials [23,25,39‒42]. It should be pointed out
here that any of the RepRap class of 3-D printers can
be deemed appropriate for this application. The
FoldaRap was chosen as the final prototype here as it
is commercially available. It is a RepRap that folds
down, as its name implies, into a small footprint and
is thus relatively easy to transport. Today there are
many easily transported RepRaps.
2.2. Power Requirements
Here only standard RepRap solid polymer filament
extruders are considered. Their power requirements
based on a number of options are shown in Table 1.
The total power necessary will also be determined
by the processing options as shown in Table 2. Power
was measured with a multimeter (± 0.2%).
Table 1. Power requirements of RepRap variants.
RepRap Name Power printing (W) Power heating (W) Time (min
−1
)*
LulzBot Mendel 35 W 140 W 1‒2 min
−1
Prusa Mendel 37 W 130 W 1‒2 min
−1
FoldaRap 40 W 135 W 1‒2 min
−1
Note: it should be noted that the tests in this study were performed on a heated
bed to represent a worst case scenario. The heated bed can be avoided by
printing on blue painters' tape with PLA or with a glue-stick on glass, but such
appropriate surfaces have not been found for all plastics.
Table 2. 3-D printer processing power requirements.
Option
Price Power (W) Operating
System
Notes/References
Raspberry
Pi [43]
$35
(+monitor)
3 W
(+monitor
draw)
Linux
Pros: very inexpensive, large online community support,
RepRap software available on Linux
Cons: potentially long delivery times
APC 8750
[44]
$49
(+monitor)
13 W
(+monitor
draw)
Android
2.3
Pros: larger processor than Raspberry Pi,
Cons: no available software, would have to write new
program, not yet readily available, high power
consumption
Efika MX
Smartbook
[45]
$199 3 W‒6 W Linux
Pros: runs Linux, battery life of up to 7 h so no extra
power draw, Wifi & 3G for downloading new designs,
lowest cost for highest functionality
Cons: higher cost
Control
through cell
phone via
Bluetooth
[46]
$29 (with
existing cell)
1 mW‒5 W Android
Pros: cell phones widespread, "cool" factor
Cons: current software needs improvement, can only
print designs already in hand
Use only an
SD card slot
[47]
$35 0 W N/A
Pros: ultra low power, very low cost
Cons: can only print designs already in hand, no
community design
Tablet $150‒500 7.5 W‒10 W Varies
Pros: no extra power draw on system, readily available
Cons: higher cost
20
Option
Price Power (W) Operating
System
Notes/References
OLPC [48] $100‒200 2 W Linux
Pros: large user community, already scaled in developing
world
Cons: expense, difficulty running some software
2.3. Designs
Here two types of designs are considered: i) mobile
community-scale and ii) ultra-portable open-source
solar-powered 3-D printers.
2.3.1. Community-Scale Mobile 3-D Printing
The community-scaled device is designed to be appro-
priate for a school or a community center that enables
many shared users in a community to utilize the equip-
ment. The first portable solar powered RepRap was a
Mendel variant using off-the-shelf components [49] and
running RAMPS1.3 with an SD card add-on which
allowed it to save power by printing without a com-
puter connection. This system was designed for heavy
usage. The 2 x 220 W PV panels, and 4 x 120 Ah
batteries give the user 35 hours of printing with a
single charge. The system uses an inverter to convert
the DC energy from the PV and batteries to a standard
AC signal. A standard power bar can be hooked up to
the inverter, so it can run/charge multiple laptops or
printers at once. The frames of the solar panels are
reinforced and hinged together so that the faces of the
PV modules fold together to prevent damage during
transport. There are adjustable, drop-down legs affixed
to the modules, so they can be angled accordingly for
maximum sun exposure. The community-scale
PV+RepRap system is shown in Figure 1a and the
design schematics are shown in Figure 1b. The complete
bill of materials and assembly is documented here in
[50].
Figure 1. a) Community-scale PV-powered open-source RepRap 3-D printer system for off-grid community
use and b) the basic schematic design. The PV are connected in parallel; a combiner box is used to combine
and drive the DC supply towards a 30 A charge controller, which maintains the controlled charging and
discharging of the batteries. The batteries are connected in two parallel lines with each line containing two
unit cells in series. During charging periods four 120 AH batteries are fed DC current while discharging
continues to power the RepRap and the laptop through a DC/AC inverter.
2.3.2. Community-Scale Mobile 3-D Printing
An ultra-portable open-source solar-powered 3-D printer
has also been designed. This system can be easily
transported in a suitcase and is intended to provide
complete mobility so as those visiting an isolated
community (e.g. doctors) can bring it with them to
print necessary products on site in the field. Although
not solar powered, a team from MIT has already re-
ported on developing a suitcase 3-D printer [51] and
there are other portable 3-D printers currently on the
market, including Printrbot Jr (v2), Portabee, Bukito
Portable, Taz, Tobeca (which comes in a case) and the
Foldarap. Here the ultra-portable system is based
around the FoldaRap shown in Figure 2a. It is a RepRap
variant, designed by French engineer, Emmanuel Gilloz
[52]. The FoldaRap is built on an extruded aluminum
base that is designed to fold into a 350 x 210 x 100 mm
frame. The ultra-portable solar-powered suitcase 3-D
printer is shown packed and deployed in Figures 2b
and c, respectively. The design schematics are shown
in Figure 2d.
21
Figure 2. a) Foldarap, b) ultra-portable PV-powered open-source suitcase Foldarap 3-D printer packed, c)
deployed for printing, and d) the circuit diagram. An ATmega328 based Arduino Uno microcontroller board is
employed to control the charging unit. A current sensor, a temperature sensor and a shunt circuit are
provided to keep records and avoid unwanted damage to circuit components. A 16 x 2 LCD display is used to
monitor mode of operation. No DC/AC inverter is included; instead a DC/DC charge controller is used. The
charge controller follows the voltage divider rule in order to control the supply voltage, and feeds steady
current to the Foldarap.
The Efika MX Smartbook, an 'ultra-portable' notebook,
was chosen to control the printer. Its power runs at an
average of 3 W, compared to the standard 60 W from
other commercial notebooks. The Smartbook's battery
can easily last 7 hours on a single charge. Running the
printer off from an SD card was considered, but in this
case only parts that were already stored on the SD
card would be printable. To ensure new parts could be
designed and printed on site, a computer was necessary.
Although the Smartbook was chosen for this project, it is
not considered a must-buy component if the builder
already has a laptop with sufficient battery life.
To achieve full mobility in this model light-weight,
semi-flexible PV modules were used. At 0.95 kg a
piece, these modules greatly reduce the size of
component that comprises the largest footprint on the
community-scale model. The PV modules are com-
prised of high-efficiency mono-crystalline silicon cells.
The bulk and weight are reduced by placing the cells
on an aluminum backing, and coating them with a
clear gel, replacing the traditional large aluminum
frame and glass panel front. This system uses five 20
W modules, to give 100 W at just over 10 lb. The
modules are mounted on a durable nylon fabric enclo-
sure to prevent damage during transport.
The other main weight reduction from the com-
munity model is in the batteries. Lithium-Ion batteries
are used in the portable model for a high storage
density in a lightweight package. Although there are
denser battery chemistries emerging on the market,
Li-ion best fits the goal of a low-cost system. This
system uses four 14.8 V 6600 mAh laptop batteries. An
inverter was not used in this system, as multi printer/
laptop functionality was not required. The circuit is
designed to solely run the printer, which requires
12‒30 VDC. The complete bill of materials and
assembly instructions are available at [53].
22
2.4. Measurements and Case Study Designs
The rate of battery charging with the PV monitored and
correlated with detailed methods that had previously
been used to determine solar flux using Open Solar
Outdoors Test Field equipment and systems [54] and
the state of charge of the battery were measured.
Three representative designs were used for testing, as
shown in Figures 3a, b and c: 1) avocado pit germi-
nation holder [55], 2) cross tweezers [56] battery
terminal separator [57]. The latter was used in the
construction of the ultra-portable solar-powered suit-
case printer from Figure 2. The volumes of plastic
used were 8.96 cm
3
, 3.47 cm
3
, 6.91 cm
3
respectively.
All of the prints were downloaded from Thingiverse
under CC-BY or public domain licenses, a repository of
open source designs that currently with over 455,000
designs and is growing exponentially [58], and were
chosen from a selection of designs with the OSAT tag.
It should be pointed out here that in general
Thingiverse licenses would not offer any application
problems in development. The one potential exception
is creative commons non-commercial licenses, which
could still be printed by community members although
they could not be sold. The prints were chosen for
varied print difficulty, times and volumes. The cross
tweezers being one of the smaller end of expected
print times, and the battery holder being a standard
print. The cross tweezers require a fine enough
resolution to test the accuracy of the printer. The
following slicer settings were used for the exper-
iments: 2 perimeters, 4 horizontal shells (2 top, 2
bottom), 35% infill, 1.7 mm PLA, and 200° C for the
hotend and 55° C bed temperatures, respectively.
Figure 3. OSAT printed on the ultra-portable PV-powered open-source suitcase Foldarap 3-D printer
a) avocado pit germination holder, b) cross tweezers and c) battery terminal separator.
3. Results and Discussion
The three case study prints were successfully printed
on both device designs and example prints are shown
in in Figure 3. The size of the battery bank in the first
design ensured that hours of continuous printing would
be available to a community every day there was
adequate sunlight. The much smaller battery bank
needed for ultra-portability in the second design,
however only enables a few prints per day on one
charge. The actual parts able to be printed are deter-
mined the solar flux availability, the fill density and
slicing settings, and the size and geometric complexity
(more complex parts take longer and use more en-
ergy to print as the head moves without printing).
Table 3 summarizes the state of charge of the bat-
teries and print time on the ultra-portable printer from
Figure 2. The heated bed and extruder only took an
average of 2 minutes to get to target printing temper-
atures on the suitcase printer. Once printing, an
average of 40 W was used, decreasing the expected
amount of energy use and increasing the length of time
the batteries can last on a single charge. The cross
tweezers came out with a slight warp, as one end
started lifting from the bed during the print. This might
have been prevented by using a 60° C bed temper-
ature rather than the 55° C that was used.
Table 3. Print time and change in charge state
of test case study 3-D prints.
Case Change in State
of Charge in
Percent
Print Time
(min)
1 Avocado Pit
Germination
Holder
18.1 49
2 Cross-Tweezers 12.9 34
3 Battery
Terminal
Separator
17.5 50
The results of this study are applicable to any off-
grid community in the world with access to sunlight.
Both the community-scale and individual suitcase por-
table PV-powered RepRaps were found to be functional
and viable for digitally fabricating custom OSAT on
location. The ability to easily fabricate custom and
complex parts or products at exceptionally low-cost
offers people anywhere in the world the ability to print
themselves out of poverty as they can print items to
meet their own needs, those of their community, and
export items to sell [58]. As the RepRaps are capable
of printing both their own components for replace-
23
ment and are able to upgrade themselves as the
global community improves the design, RepRaps have
an extended life cycle and are appropriate for most
communities.
The related work with RecycleBots, which turn
waste plastic into 3-D printing filament, can be viewed
as a major enabling technology as it allows local
materials to be used in the production of high-value 3-
D printer parts, with lower costs and less envi-
ronmental impact [59‒63]. Plastic waste is common in
many developing communities [64,65] and informal
waste recycling is sometimes conducted as an
economic activity [66]. ProtoPrint in India is already
using waste pickers to recycle plastic into 3-D filament
as part of a social entrepreneurship program. Similar
efforts are underway with the Ethical Filament
Foundation and Plastic Bank's social filament program.
For regions, with no access to waste plastic, further
work is needed in biopolymer reactors to produce PLA
from agricultural waste. Similarly, access to the elec-
tronics in parts of the developing world may be lim-
ited. Thus, there is a generalizable risk of repeating the
past problems with broken equipment meant for devel-
opment (e.g. pump parts) by creating a new problem
of broken 3-D printers. Future work is needed in
developing RepRaps capable of fixing and printing
electronics components. It should be pointed out here
that this is not a complete solution, but a path towards
sustainable development that is still under construction.
The initial costs of the community and suitcase
systems as designed here were $2,500 and $1,300
respectively. These costs are still substantial, partic-
ularly for the majority of the developing world. These
were prototypes and the costs of the systems can be
expected to drop considerably for any replication of
the systems for two reasons. First the cost of PV has
dropped from the $1.59 W
−1
for which the community
panels were purchased and $1.90 W
−1
for the suitcase
panels to under $0.65/W for PV on the international
market. Similarly, the cost of the open-source 3-D
printers has been reduced from the start of this study
at $800 and $600 for the Mendell RepRap and
Foldarap to currently about $550 for a Michigan Tech
HS Prusa RepRap design [58] and under $500 for a
MOST Delta RepRap [67]. Both of these major costs
appear to be able to continue to fall. The value of
owning or having access to a printer is also increasing
exponentially along with the number of open source
designs—as producing only 20 common objects with a
RepRap in 25 hours of printing at home could save
consumers $300‒$2000 [58]. It should be pointed out
that this study [58] is for wealthy developed countries.
Most of the products printed are not available in areas
of the developing world and of questionable utility for
sustainable development. For developing communities,
printed items that bring high value would need to be
identified and designed. In addition to the high
economic return from deploying PV+RepRap systems
for distributed manufacturing, there are also substantial
reductions in the environmental impact of
manufacturing using this process rather than standard
manufacturing [60‒62].
Both RepRaps and Recyclebots are open-source
technologies where hundreds of people throughout the
world are collaborating to rapidly improve the tech-
nology and provide an incredibly fast growing selection
of products to print with them. This provides the po-
tential of a major paradigm shift in how industry works,
which encourages local and even home-made manu-
facturing of a rapidly increasing selection of highly
sophisticated and valuable products. These tech-
nologies and the open source paradigm hold the
promise of creating enormous wealth for those in
developed and developing communities. Perhaps the
most immediate change for the developing world will
be access to high-quality customized scientific equip-
ment at unprecedented low costs (e.g. reduction by a
factor of 100 in the costs of lab supplies and instru-
mentation) [15,16]. As this becomes commonplace
there will be an accelerating positive feedback loop
the more scientists participate the faster technical
problems will be solved and the more value will be
created for everyone.
4. Future Work
There are several areas of future work that need to be
addressed. First, continual reductions in the energy
consumption of RepRaps will reduce the size and cost
of the PV and battery storage systems for both designs.
There has been preliminary work into printing with
either a variable area heated bed or printing without a
heated bed; the heated bed is the system's major
energy draw and needs to be considered in more
detail. In addition, a reduction in energy use is possible
through the removal of all AC-DC conversions by
avoiding standard computer power supplies. The de-
sign methodology used here was not formalized and
thus the overall design can be improved in the future
by following focused design methodologies such as
Ecodesign [68,69] or Design for Sustainability [70] and,
rather than using the PV-powered RepRap as only a
means to manufacture AT, begin to specifically design it
as AT itself [71].
This study should also be repeated with recycled
waste plastic as several commercial RecycleBots are
maturing and the concept of ethical filament is
expanding worldwide. The RecycleBot and accom-
panying shredder/grinders will also need to be adapted
for off-grid use with PV power. There is a large
collection of designs and the beginnings of open-source
digital OSAT designs, but far more work is needed to
have printable designs to meet all of the needs of the
world's people. Future field work could interview
people living in a wide range of developing com-
munities to find out what the most valuable and
relevant OSAT prints are in different geographic
regions. Considerable work is needed here, but it is
24
also possible for relatively modest contributions of
CAD for OSAT to have a major impact on communities
all over the world. This work is now being completed
largely by volunteers and hobbyists within the 'maker'
movement. However, there is also a business op-
portunity for companies to profit from an open-source
hardware paradigm paralleling the open source soft-
ware movement that has led, for example, to RedHat,
which is a $1 billion software company that distributes
free software. In particular, companies that sell
consumables or 3-D printer components, such as hot
ends, should consider open-sourcing the designs for
the products that drive the demand in the consum-
ables and move them into new markets. Finally, in
order to minimize costs while ensuring optimized
designs, all of the components of the system need to
be completely open source, including the possibility
for printable PV [72] and a fully open source laptop.
5. Conclusions
This study designed and demonstrated the technical
viability of two open-source mobile solar photovoltaic
digital manufacturing facilities. The first, designed for
community use such as in schools, is semi-mobile and
capable of nearly continuous 3-D printing using RepRap
technology while also powering multiple computers.
The second design, which can be completely packed in
a standard suitcase, is intended for specialist travel
from community to community in the developing world
to provide the ability to custom manufacture open
source appropriate technology as needed, anywhere.
These designs not only bring the ability to complete
complex manufacturing and replacement part fabri-
cation, to isolated rural communities lacking access to
the electric grid, but they also offer the opportunity to
leap frog the entire conventional manufacturing supply
chain while radically reducing the environmental impact
of production.
6. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge helpful discus-
sions with E. Gilloz, the designer of the FoldaRap, and
technical assistance and support from J. Murduck, H.
McLaren Jr., and A. Stebbins, Tech for Trade and National
Science and Engineering Research Council.
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