MIT Team 3D-Prints an Electric Motor for $0.50
Researchers at MIT have developed a 3D-printed electric motor that can be produced in just 3 hours for about 50 cents. The breakthrough could enable distributed, low-cost manufacturing of essential components for research tools and other equipment, dramatically lowering the barrier to entry for custom hardware.
The breakthrough hinges on a custom 3D printing platform that uses four different extrusion heads. This allows it to print with multiple material types in a single, continuous process, fabricating all the essential components of the motor—conductors, insulators, and magnets—on one machine. This specific device is a linear motor, which creates motion in a straight line, not rotation. Such components are critical for precision equipment like pick-and-place robotics, optical systems, and lab automation tools. The only post-processing step required is magnetizing the hard magnetic materials to activate the motor. The performance of the 3D-printed motor matched or even exceeded that of similarly sized, conventionally manufactured motors. While commercially available linear motors can cost from $300 to thousands of dollars, this printed version provides a drastic cost reduction, lowering the barrier for creating custom research hardware. This innovation is part of a larger movement toward open-source scientific hardware, which aims to democratize access to research tools. By sharing designs for instruments like syringe pumps, microscopes, and sensors, researchers can reduce costs and accelerate experimentation by quickly iterating on custom-built equipment. The MIT team's future work includes integrating the magnetization step into the printing process for true single-step fabrication. They also aim to print more complex rotary motors and embed power electronics and sensors directly into the 3D-printed components.
