Characterization of Conductive 3D Printed Fingertips Manufactured by Fused Filament Fabrication

This study purposed to develop conductivity 3D printed (3DP) fingertips and confirm their potential for use in a pressure sensor. Index fingertips were 3D printed using thermoplastic polyurethane filament with three types of infill patterns (Zigzag (ZG), Triangles (TR), Honeycomb (HN)) and densities (20%, 50%, 80%). Hence, the 3DP index fingertip was dip-coated with 8 wt% graphene/waterborne polyurethane composite solution. The coated 3DP index fingertips were analyzed by appearance property, weight changes, compressive property, and electrical property. As results, the weight increased from 1.8 g to 2.9 g as infill density increased. By infill pattern, ZG was the largest, and the pick-up rate decreased from 18.9% for 20% infill density to 4.5% for 80% infill density. Compressive properties were confirmed. Compressive strength increased as infill density increased. In addition, the compressive strength after coating was improved more than 1000 times. Especially, TR had excellent compressive toughness as 13.9 J for 20%, 17.2 J for 50%, and 27.9 J for 80%. In the case of electrical properties, the current become excellent at 20% infill density. By infill patterns at 20% infill density, TR has 0.22 mA as the best conductivity. Therefore, we confirmed the conductivity of 3DP fingertips, and the infill pattern of TR at 20% was most suitable.