I'm building a Chocolate 3D Printer for my MSc at the University of Sussex. This is a full test of a new extruder design using melted chocolate at operating temperature.
This time the extruder features a lobe pump which I hoped would be an improvement to the spur gear design used previously. Rather than melting the chocolate in the warming cup, this time chocolate was pre-melted and spooned into the warming cup ready for extrusion.
Although the lobe pump experienced a jam during priming, once chocolate was in the chamber there were no further problems with jamming.
However, the main problem is that chocolate does not enter the chamber fast enough to be extruded under pressure. The pump failed to extrude sufficiently to extrude a line of chocolate as expected.
Although this pump is better than the previous design it is still not good enough and an alternative design will have to be produced.

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