CAN Bus: The Future of Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing)

Additive manufacturing (AM) is gaining renewed popularity and attention due to low-cost fabrication systems proliferating the market. Current communication protocols used in AM limit the connection flexibility between the control board and peripherals; they are often complex in their wiring and thus restrict their avenue of expansion. Thus, the controller area network (CAN) bus is an attractive pathway for interhardware connections due to its innate quality. However, the combination of CAN and AM is not well explored and documented in existing literature. This article aims to provide examples of CAN bus applications in AM.