Prototyping a Mechanical Extruder
In our effort to make a CNC pancake maker, we need to make an accurate and robust extruder for the pancake batter. Pancake batter can be difficult to work with. It isn’t always consistent and we need to make sure that we can control accurately how much batter is coming out. In addition to the pump powered extruder mentioned in the previous post, we designed and 3D printed a mechanical extruder with a servo powered linkage to actuate a plunger downward to push out the batter.
We found that the plunging action might not be smooth enough for what we want. Also, we would likely have to keep refilling a smaller container of batter or have a very large plunger design if we went with this method. We are proceeding with the pump powered design, but will keep this on the table for later.
