High-Speed 3D Printing Process

Extruder design for 3D printing that enables faster material changes, higher print speeds, and improved temperature control for printing with multiple materials. The extruder has an active cooling system using compressed air or other fluids to quickly cool the extruder between material changes. An insulated shell around the extruder further aids cooling. This allows rapid extruder swaps without degradation or material waste. The active cooling reduces preheating times and improves energy efficiency. The insulated shell separates feeding/loading from melting areas for better temperature control.

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Combined matrix optical lens for UV 3D printers that improves uniformity and efficiency of UV light exposure for high precision 3D printing. The lens design reduces the number of LED units needed to illuminate the LCD screen by using double-sided optics. It also allows customization of lens size based on application requirements to optimize cost and performance.

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Additive manufacturing system and method for rapid and accurate 3D printing using droplet deposition and electric field control. The system uses electric fields to deposit charged droplets from a printing platform onto a build platform using a layer-by-layer method. An electric field is formed between the nozzle and the build platform to control droplet trajectory. A flattening unit compacts each layer before curing. The electric field control allows high-viscosity materials to be dispensed at rapid speeds with improved accuracy and quality compared to traditional 3D printing.

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A custom flow additive for metal 3D printing powders that improves their flowability and spreadability without negatively affecting the mechanical properties of printed parts. The additive is made by freezing and lyophilizing a nanoparticle dispersion to form low-density, porous agglomerates that readily break apart into individual nanoparticles when mixed with the metal powder. The nanoparticles stick to the metal particle surfaces and reduce cohesion forces, improving flow while avoiding deleterious grain boundary inclusions that occur with conventional flow additives.

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Single component compositions for 3D printing solid objects with high impact strength. It contains norbornene and dicyclopentadiene-based monomers, an oxygen-sensitive ruthenium catalyst, and a photolytically activated photoinitiator. The composition is stable at ambient conditions but rapidly polymerizes when exposed to light, producing 3D-printed objects with high impact strength.

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3D printing method that enables freeform fabrication of complex polymeric structures without the need for elevated temperatures or supports. The method involves printing a liquid build material containing a polymer dissolved in a solvent into air. A nebulized coagulation agent is sprayed near the printed material to solidify it partially. This allows the printing of complex geometries without support. The printed parts are then fully solidified by soaking in a post-printing coagulation solution and drying. The solvent can be reclaimed for reuse.

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Improving metal 3D printing by using a thixotropic material that can flow over time when shaken, agitated, sheared, or otherwise stressed, even if the temperature is not increased. This allows independent control of temperature and heat transfer between layers during printing. The metal material used is a thixotropic magnesium alloy that can be 3D printed with a fused deposition printer. A chamber is used to control temperature and gas to prevent oxidation.

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A metal 3D printer that quickly forms metal support structures that can be easily removed after printing. The printer ejects melted metal drops to form objects. To create supports, it forms a line of spaced pillars, and then a single pass ejects a continuous metal line over the pillars. This avoids excessive heat buildup. The pillars can be easily separated from the continuous line later. This enables rapid support formation with adequate strength compared to building walls and joining pillars incrementally.

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Automatically optimizing the support removal process for 3D printed parts by using historical and real-time data from the support removal machine to make decisions about which agitation methods to activate and adjust.

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A method to improve the performance of metal 3D printing by mitigating particle sticking and caking issues that can cause defects. The method involves preheating stainless steel particles before printing to create a thin oxidation barrier on the particle surface. This barrier prevents adhesive interactions between the particles that cause sticking and caking.

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Optimizing control parameters for rapid DLP 3D printing by combining continuous and layered printing to improve efficiency and adaptability to models of any size. The method involves simulating resin flow, curing, and printing behavior to determine optimal parameters like lift height, platform speed, and max fill distance. These parameters are determined using fluid dynamics and curing laws to balance speed and model adaptation.

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Additive manufacturing system that reduces the cost and time required to 3D print components by rotating the build platform in two different speeds. The platform has a central shaft that can rotate independently from the platform. By rotating the platform and shaft at different speeds, the platform slides up and down along the shaft. This allows continuous vertical movement of the platform while rotating, enabling simultaneous recoating and consolidating of the powder bed.

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3D printing method for high-resolution rapid manufacturing of strong, customizable 3D parts. The method uses a combination of digital printing and contact printing. The first material layers are digitally printed. Then a transfer body coated with a second material is used to contact print further layers. This allows using high viscosity materials for strength.

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High strength aluminum alloy suitable for additive manufacturing that can be 3D printed into complex parts. The aluminum alloy composition contains 2-15% manganese and 0.3-2% scandium, with balance being aluminum. This alloy provides tensile strengths greater than 400 MPa, which is high for aluminum, making it suitable for load-bearing structural components that require high strength. The alloy can be rapidly solidified using AM processes like selective laser melting (SLM) or electron beam melting (EBM) to retain the high strength. The alloy can also be used for other rapid solidification methods like laser cladding or thermal spray.

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An improved 3D printer system that uses a heated auger screw to deliver powder material to the build platform. The auger screw is heated to pre-heat the powder as it is moved from the storage unit to the build platform. This improves the performance of the 3D printer by allowing the powder to be pre-heated before printing, preventing cooling and solidification issues that can occur when cold powder is exposed to the high temperature energy source that fuses the printed layers.

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Facilitating 3D printing by optimizing printer head movements to reduce unproductive travel time. This is done using a self-adjusting printer base with movable blocks. The system analyzes the object to be printed and identifies contact points with the base. It then determines a configuration for the movable blocks to position those contact points centrally. This allows printing of those areas to stay localized rather than moving around the print area. The blocks can adjust during printing to optimize head movement.

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Speeding up additive manufacturing using 3D printing techniques. The method involves changing the cooling rate of the deposited polymer material to deposit each layer faster. This is done by modifying the polymer properties, such as thermal conductivity, or the printing environment, to facilitate faster cooling between layers.

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A high-speed 3D printing method that uses a continuous process involving a coating system, laser removal of excess material, and UV curing through a film to build up an object layer by layer. The key steps are coating a film with a material, digitally removing excess material using a laser, and exposing the coated film to a non-digital curing system like UV light while in contact with a partially built 3D object.

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A method for additive manufacturing of multi-material components like a stator connection support for quick and inexpensive prototyping. The method uses hybrid additive manufacturing with a mix of additive manufacturing technologies to create the component. The key idea is to leverage the flexibility of polymer 3D printing to create substrate structures that can elastically deform and average out alignment errors when mated to form the final component. By using elastically deformable features like protrusions and recesses that can flex to align during assembly, the additive manufacturing errors can be mitigated and accurate component alignment achieved. These elastically averaging couplings allow creating complete, functional multi-material components like a stator connection support by coupling conductive components to the polymer substrates.

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Optimizing build speed and efficiency of 3D printing by dynamically adjusting deposition rates, consolidation energy delivery and tool speeds based on consolidation times at different build points. The build tool is guided along an optimized trajectory that minimizes build time while maintaining quality metrics above a threshold.

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