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YOU CAN BUILD THE 3D PRINTER THAT PRINTS AEROSPACE-GRADE PLASTIC

Build a heated-chamber FFF printer that can actually print PEEK—the plastic aerospace uses when PLA would melt.

by Thompson, Salisbury, Garrison, DeJean, Kundu and Priddy, Mississippi State University

FULL CAD BOM FIRMWARE DOCS

WorkshopOpen-hardware

Built with3D printing

difficulty
●●●●●
time
multiple weekends
license
CERN-OHL-P
repo
repo FINISHED0 stars

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

1
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COMPAREE VERDICT

This is an open-hardware printer built specifically for PEEK and ULTEM, and it is a proper heated-chamber design—not a retrofit of a desktop frame. The Mississippi State team documented every part, every wire and the firmware configuration, and released it under a permissive licence. The catch is that this is an academic publication, not a Prusa-style assembly manual. The CAD is there, the drawings are there, the wiring is there, but you are bridging from 'here is the design' to 'here is the working machine' yourself. If you have built a 3D printer from scratch before, or you are comfortable reading engineering drawings and sourcing aluminium extrusion in your region, this is buildable. If you have not, the gap between the paper and a working machine will eat weeks. The single thing most likely to go wrong is the heated chamber—getting it to hold around 120°C stably without runaway, and without the enclosure becoming a safety problem. The authors used an off-the-shelf ceramic air heater, mineral-wool insulation and PID control on a Duet board. The second thing is that printing PEEK well is not just about temperature—it is about drying the filament, tuning retraction and cooling (or lack of it), and dealing with bed adhesion at those temperatures. The machine gets you to the start line; dialling it in is the rest of the project. For someone who needs to print high-performance polymers and wants a modular machine they can study and modify, this is one of the few fully documented open designs. For everyone else, it is a fascinating read and a reminder that some plastics need a whole different class of hardware.

GOOD TO KNOW

  • —CAD, technical drawings, wiring diagrams and full bill of materials are published on OSF under CERN-OHL-P.
  • —The paper includes detailed assembly notes, thermal performance data and test prints.
  • —Firmware is provided: a custom RepRap Firmware 3.3 configuration for the Duet2 Ethernet board (config.g and macros) is in the OSF repository.
  • —The BOM is itemised with suppliers and comes to 2,664.80 US dollars as published in 2026.
  • —CERN-OHL-P is permissive—commercial use is allowed.
  • —This is a research publication, not a step-by-step maker guide. You are expected to read mechanical drawings and adapt the design to your materials supply.

Parts to buy

6 items

From our check of the build. Exact quantities and part numbers are in the creator’s BOM.

  • Aluminium extrusion frameFind
  • Heated bedFind
  • High-temperature hotendFind
  • Chamber heater elementsFind
  • InsulationFind
  • Standard motion electronicsFind

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Can I build this?

PrintYes: brackets, CoreXY rod supports, carriage frames, motor mounts and other parts are printed (STL files on OSF); the BOM budgets three spools of ABS
Buyaluminium extrusion frame, heated bed, high-temperature hotend, chamber heater elements, insulation, standard motion electronics, fasteners—full itemised BOM in the OSF repository
Toolsaccess to a mill or CNC machine (or a machine shop) for the aluminium door, plates and Z-axis mounts, drill and taps, a 3D printer for the printed parts, metric hex keys and a 13 mm wrench, crimping tools, wire strippers, multimeter, soldering iron, CAD software to open and adapt the design files
Skillsintermediate-to-advanced: you need to wire mains-powered heating elements safely, tune PID loops, read mechanical drawings, and adapt the published RepRap Firmware config if you change parts
Timemultiple weekends—frame assembly alone is a weekend, then wiring, insulation, tuning the chamber heater, and finally calibrating for PEEK
Cost$$$—the published BOM is 2,664.80 US dollars (2026), dominated by the high-temperature hotend, extruder, Duet controller and aluminium framing
SafetyMains voltage throughout—chamber and bed heaters run on 120 V through SSRs. The chamber runs at up to about 120°C and the nozzle up to 500°C, a burn hazard and a fire risk if insulation or wiring fails. PID tuning is critical to prevent thermal runaway. Do not run this unattended until it is proven stable, and use a fire-rated enclosure location.

This build involves mains voltage — for adults comfortable with electrical work only.

Build at your own risk. Projects involve tools, electronics and sometimes mains voltage — follow the creator’s safety notes.

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Start here

Navigation into the creator’s own docs — we don’t rewrite the guide, we route you to the source.

  1. 1.Read the HardwareX paper end-to-end (The paper is the manual. It contains assembly notes, wiring diagrams, thermal performance data and the rationale for every design choice.)
  2. 2.Download the CAD, drawings and BOM from OSF (The repository includes SolidWorks CAD, technical drawings, wiring schematics and the full itemised bill of materials with supplier part numbers.)
  3. 3.Source aluminium extrusion locally(The frame uses 40 mm T-slot extrusion plus 1 x 1 inch (25.4 mm) T-slot rails on the Z-axis. Buying locally saves shipping, but check the profile sizes against the drawings.)
  4. 4.Plan your chamber heater and insulation(The authors used an off-the-shelf PTC ceramic air heater, mineral-wool insulation and PID control. Plan your insulation and wiring to hold around 120°C chamber temperature safely.)

KNOWN ISSUES

  • The heated chamber is the hardest part—you are wiring mains-powered heaters through SSRs and breakers, insulating the enclosure to hold around 120°C, and tuning PID to prevent runaway. This is not a weekend task and it is a fire risk if done poorly.
  • The published RepRap Firmware config matches the authors' exact heaters and thermocouples. If you substitute a different hotend, bed heater or sensor, you must edit config.g and re-tune PID before trusting it at temperature.
  • PEEK filament is hygroscopic—it must be dried before printing or it will bubble and fail. You need a filament dryer or a heated dry box, and even then, dialling in retraction and bed adhesion at 150°C+ is trial and error.
  • The BOM uses US suppliers (Slice Engineering, McMaster-Carr, Amazon). Outside the US, budget time to find equivalents for the high-temperature hotend and the bed heater.
  • This is a research build, not a consumer product. The documentation is excellent by academic standards, but it assumes you can read mechanical drawings, adapt designs and solve problems without step-by-step photos.
  • Chamber temperature control is critical—too low and PEEK warps, too high and you risk damaging electronics or starting a fire. The authors' thermal testing is in the paper; you will be replicating it during commissioning.

Can I print PEEK on a normal desktop printer with an upgraded hotend?

No, not reliably. The nozzle is not the only limit: these polymers need a hot bed and a heated chamber, because PEEK's glass transition is about 143°C and the parts warp and delaminate as layers cool. A desktop printer without a heated chamber cannot provide that.

Is this certified for aerospace or medical use?

No. This is a research build. Printing PEEK does not make a part aerospace-certified—that requires material traceability, process validation and testing far beyond what a home-built printer can provide. This is for prototyping and learning, not regulated applications.

What firmware do I use?

The printer runs RepRap Firmware 3.3 on a Duet2 Ethernet board, and the authors publish their full configuration (config.g and homing macros) on OSF. You still tune PID for your own heaters, but you start from a working config.

How much does PEEK filament cost?

PEEK filament is far more expensive than PLA or PETG; the paper does not price it, so check current supplier prices. Keep high-performance filament dry: the authors stored their ULTEM at 10 to 30 percent humidity in a filament dryer.

Can I scale this down or skip the heated chamber?

Skipping the heated chamber defeats the entire purpose—PEEK and other high-performance polymers will warp without it. You could scale the build volume, but the chamber heater, insulation and frame are the non-negotiable parts.

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Discussion1

FROM THE COMPAREE TEAM

The published hardware cost is about 2,665 dollars and the chamber has to hold 120°C, far hotter than a normal enclosure. If you were building this, would you follow the paper's PTC air heater approach, or try something else?

CompareeTEAM1mo agoedited

Practical notes from our verification: the documentation is unusually complete for an academic publication. The OSF repository has CAD, drawings, an itemised parts list, PrusaSlicer profiles for ULTEM and PEEK, the full custom RepRapFirmware 3.3 configuration for the Duet2 Ethernet board, and a short video on setting up the RepRap web interface; the paper adds the wiring diagram and the heater warm-up times. The catch is that it is written for someone who already knows how to build a printer from scratch. The heated chamber is the real build: the design holds it at 120°C with a PTC ceramic air heater and mineral wool insulation, and getting that stable and safe is the project within the project. If you are confident wiring heaters and editing RepRapFirmware configs, this is buildable in a few weekends. If you are not, the gap between the drawings and a working printer is large. One last note: PEEK filament itself is expensive and must be dried; printing it well is as much about material handling and tuning as about the machine. Correction (4 October 2026): we re-checked this page line by line against the project's own repository, documentation and videos, and fixed errors in earlier versions.

Thompson, Salisbury, Garrison, DeJean, Kundu and Priddy, Mississippi State University

The team at Mississippi State published this design as part of research into accessible high-temperature additive manufacturing. Commercial printers for PEEK and PEI range from about 2,600 to 50,000 dollars, and the cheaper ones are not modular, so the team documented a modular heated-chamber FFF printer that others can study and modify, and released it under the permissive CERN-OHL-P licence.

Star the project on GitHub

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