Abstract
In this study a commercial inkjet printer was modified to study the resolution of fluid dot placement required to fabricate 3D multi-material patterns layer by layer. A JAVA based computer program was developed to convert stereolithography (STL) data layer by layer, control the ink cartridges individually and print ink with customized fluid dot placement arrangements. The study found out that complement printing between nozzles which is 30μm in diameter and 144μm apart is essential to achieve a fully dense 3D pattern. When printed with 36μm printing spacing vertically, a layer thickness of 1.30μm is achievable and when printing layer by layer, the thickness increases almost at a linear rate.
