Cocoa Press started here. It had a custom plywood frame and motorized extruder but had no cooling abilities. I built it from the ground up with inspiration from a Makerbot Replicator I used to print most of the pieces.

• Fun Fact: The tallest item this version printed was a 13 layer vase.

This update used the same frame as the original. It utilized pneumatics for the extruder and peltiers to cool the chocolate after being extruded.

• Fun Fact: This printer used custom circuitry in place of a stepper motor driver to open and close the pneumatic valve.

ChocolaTier was my senior design capstone project at the University of Pennsylvania. It featured a sheet metal frame, pneumatic syringe and full vapor compression cooling system.

• Fun Fact: ChocolaTier had 5 temperature sensors throughout the extruder to control the heating.

Charlie focused on ease of use, food safety, and design for manufacturability. It featured a stainless steel build chamber, new touch screen interface, and easily adjustable air pressure control. It used thermally conductive filament and 3D printed metal to quickly test hot end geometries.

• Fun Fact: We had 4 trade shows lined up in the spring of 2020 to show Charlie off when COVID-19 hit the US.

FrankenPrinter combined all of the best parts of our Charlie prototype with a brand new stepper motor driven extruder. This new extruder gave us much more accurate temperature and extrusion control and is the basis for our current design.

• Fun Fact: FrankenPrinter switched from using single use plastic cartridges to a reusable stainless steel system.

We tidied up every nut and bolt for Chef. It continued to utilize a vapor compression cooling system, an insulated build chamber, and a double-paned door. It had an updated, all-metal stepper motor driven extruder, and a frame made of food grade stainless steel and powder coated aluminum. We released this printer in the fall of 2020.

• Fun Fact: Chef requires a custom thermistor circuit to have a chocolate temperature precision of +- 0.1°C.