3D Printed Capacitive Fluid Level Sensor

Abstract

A three dimensional, additively manufactured interdigital capacitive sensor for fluid level measurement applications is introduced. The device was fabricated using the fused filament fabrication (FFF) additive manufacturing (AM) process and an off the shelf conductive filament with a volume resistivity ρ = 0.6 Ω cm. The 3D fabrication process allows great flexibility in terms of sensor ̇ design and an increase of the surface area between the electrodes, compensating the relatively large plate separation and yielding a high sensitivity to increasing fluid levels. The measurements presented in this abstract show the average increase of capacitance in response to an incrementally increasing volume of de-ionized water (DI-water) filled between the separate digits.