Additive manufacturing for capacitive liquid level sensors

Abstract A new manufacturing wave concerning the Additive Manufacturing of sensors is spreading: several benefits, such as cost, time, and manual task reduction, can be achieved. The aim present research one-shot a low-cost capacitive sensor for liquid level sensing. Material extrusion (MeX) technology was used to fabricate proposed (composed flexible substrate, two conductive electrodes, top coverage), Design (DfAM) approach in conjunction with 3D printing force analysis performed. Very thin tracks (0.5 mm) were manufactured obtain having final capacitance value 125 pF, readable by common laboratory instrumentation. has been tested sensing using different liquids, i.e., sunflower oil distilled water, exhibiting very good sensitivity 0.078 $$\frac{pF}{mm}$$ pF mm 0.79 , respectively, high repeatability, thus obtaining performances comparable that more expensive found literature. Moreover, showed linearity (R 2 ? 0.997), which resulted maximum propagated error 1.4 mm. proves inexpensive MeX successfully employed fabrication high-performance sensors: cost (related raw materials) 0.38 €, no assembly tasks This study lays foundation smart structures on board, saving time cost.