AUTOMATED 3D BUILD PROCESSES
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A conveyor or other transport mechanism is provided to support multiple, sequential builds from a three-dimensional fabrication machine. The conveyor may be heated/cooled, coated, or otherwise treated to assist in adhesion during a build, as well as removal of objects after a build. Each fabricated object may be automatically removed from the conveyor as the conveyor moves in order to restore a buildable surface for fabrication of additional objects.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. (canceled)
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2. An apparatus comprising:
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a build platform including a surface that is rigid and substantially planar; an extruder including a chamber to receive a build material and an extrusion tip that extrudes the build material at a controlled volumetric rate; a x-y-z positioning assembly adapted to three-dimensionally position the extrusion tip within the working volume; a controller electrically coupled to each of the build platform, the conveyor, the extruder, and the x-y-z positioning assembly, the controller operable to control the build platform, the conveyor, the extruder, and the x-y-z positioning assembly to fabricate an object in three-dimensions from the build material; and a plurality of heating elements within the build platform, each one of the plurality of heating elements coupled in a communicating relationship with the controller to controllably impart heat to an area of the surface of the build platform. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method comprising:
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providing a build platform having a surface that is substantially planar, the build platform passing through a working volume of a three-dimensional printer; independently controlling a plurality of heating elements for the build platform to provide different heating in different areas of the build platform; and fabricating an object on the build platform, wherein fabricating the object includes creating the object from a number of layers of a material, each one of the number of layers having a two-dimensional shape corresponding to a cross-section of the object. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19)
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20. A computer program product for controlling a three-dimensional printer, the computer program product comprising computer executable code embodied in a non-transitory computer-readable medium that, when executing on one or more computing devices, performs the steps of:
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controlling a three-dimensional printer to fabricate an object on a build platform within a working volume of the three-dimensional printer, wherein fabricating the object includes creating the object from a number of layers of a material, each one of the number of layers having a two-dimensional shape corresponding to a cross-section of the object; and independently controlling a plurality of heating elements for the build platform to provide different heating in different areas of the build platform. - View Dependent Claims (21)
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Specification