Electric motors are essential components across automated manufacturing systems, yet their production and replacement typically rely on centralized facilities and complex supply chains. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing a multimaterial 3D printing platform designed to fabricate fully functional electric motors onsite in a single manufacturing step.
The approach could reduce replacement costs, minimize operational downtime, and shift production toward faster, localized, and more flexible manufacturing models.
The work appears in the journal Virtual and Physical Prototyping. The paper is led by Jorge Cañada, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student at MIT, with contributions from fellow EECS student Zoey Bigelow. Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, a principal research scientist at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL), is the senior author overseeing the study.
A Multi-Material Printing
To achieve this, the MIT team engineered a multimaterial extrusion platform capable of processing several functional materials within one system. The printer integrates four distinct extrusion tools, each designed to handle a different type or form of printable feedstock. By automatically switching between tools, the system deposits conductive, magnetic, and structural materials layer by layer to build a complete device.
Designing this platform required overcoming substantial engineering challenges. Traditional extrusion printers typically manage only one or two materials of similar format. As a result, the team had to modify a standard 3D printer to incorporate four specialized extruders, each capable of processing a distinct type of material.
Each extruder was engineered to accommodate the unique properties and limitations of its assigned feedstock. For example, the conductive material needed to solidify without excessive heat or UV exposure, which could damage surrounding dielectric components. Meanwhile, the highest-performing conductive formulations are typically inks that require pressure-based extrusion, a method fundamentally different from conventional heated-nozzle systems that melt and deposit filament or pellets.
The team integrated carefully positioned sensors and a custom control system to guide the printer’s robotic arms, ensuring each extruder is engaged and retracted consistently. This precision allows every layer to align accurately.
Printing a Functional Motor in Hours
To demonstrate the system’s capabilities, the team produced a fully operational linear electric motor in roughly three hours using five different materials. Aside from a single post-print magnetization step, no additional fabrication processes were required. The finished motor matched or exceeded the performance of comparable devices manufactured through more complex methods. Material costs were estimated at approximately 50 cents per unit.
Linear motors, which generate motion in a straight line rather than rotational movement, are commonly used in robotics, optical positioning systems, and conveyor technologies. The researchers see this prototype as a proof of concept rather than an endpoint.
“This is a great feat, but it is just the beginning. We have an opportunity to fundamentally change the way things are made by making hardware onsite in one step, rather than relying on a global supply chain. With this demonstration, we’ve shown that this is feasible,” says Velásquez-García.
Future work includes integrating magnetization directly into the printing workflow, fabricating rotary motors, and expanding the platform with additional tools to support even more complex electronic systems.
If successfully scaled, this approach could reduce reliance on global supply chains and enable rapid, localized production of customized components for robotics, transportation, and medical devices, potentially reshaping how electronic hardware is manufactured.
Limitations and Remaining Challenges
Single-step 3D printing of electrical machines is promising but limited by current technology. The researchers noted that challenges include handling multiple materials, printing overhangs and mechanically independent parts, ensuring alignment, and achieving reliable interfacial adhesion. Printer tool limitations and design complexity increase the risk of fabrication failure, particularly for conductive and magnetic components. Strategies like versatile or soluble materials can help, but complete assembly-free fabrication remains difficult.
Scalability and performance are also constrained. Larger or more complex machines require careful thermal management, high-precision alignment, and materials capable of multiple functions. Achieving practical, monolithic 3D printed electrical machines will require highly reliable multi-material printers that can process conductive, magnetic, rigid, flexible, and soluble materials simultaneously, while maintaining accuracy, adhesion, and overall device functionality.
Accelerating Motor Production with On-Demand 3D Printing
Traditional manufacturing and spare-parts supply chains are often slow, centralized, and expensive, particularly for complex components like electric motors, where a single failure can disrupt entire operations. Additive manufacturing offers a solution by enabling parts to be produced on demand, reducing reliance on warehouses and long logistics chains.
In the electric motor sector, 3D printing is already streamlining production. For instance, 3D printed copper windings, a critical motor component, allow new motor designs that would be difficult or costly to achieve with conventional methods.
Similarly, Additive Drives recently raised a mid-double-digit million-euro investment to scale its 3D printed electric motor technology, which focuses on high-efficiency motors free of rare-earth materials and rapid deployment across sectors such as e-mobility, robotics, and industrial automation.
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Featured image shows 3D printing platform that could be used to fully print electric machines in a single step. Photo via MIT.
