Xerox Corporation

Brown University

Palo Alto Research Center Inc.

Xerox Corproration

Peter Johan Nystrom

David Allen Mantell

Mark Anthony Cellura

Gary Daniel Redding

Peter M Gulvin

Andrew Wayne Hays

Christopher G Lynn

Bryan R Dolan

Barry Paul Mandel

Jun Ma

John Richard Andrews

John Paul Meyers

Bradley James Gerner

Bijoyraj Sahu

Donald J Drake

Cathie J Burke

Nancy Y Jia

Scott J Phillips

Chad Johan Slenes

Richard Schmachtenberg, Iii

Jason O'Neil

Angus Ian Kingon

Seunghyun Kim

Gerald A Domoto

Chad David Freitag

Jonathan Robert Brick

Joseph A DeGroot

Jon Garret Judge

Lyle G Dingman

Santokh Singh Badesha

Lalit Keshav Mestha

Paul J McConville

Karl Anthony Littau

Steven A Buhler

Robert Alan Clark

Nicholas P Kladias

Yanjia Zuo

Richard P Germain

David R Koehler

Garry A Jones

Xuejin Wen

Samuel Vincent Schultz

Paul W Browne

Scott Taylor Treece

Nicholas Mostovych

Jeffrey J Folkins

Edgar A Bernal

Stuart Alan Schweid

Kock-Yee Law

David Lyell Knierim

Mandakini Kanungo

Roger Gaylord Leighton

Varun Sambhy

John Stuart Fitch

Christopher Douglas Atwood

Ali Rafic Dergham

David G Anderson

Scott Eugene Solberg

Francisco Zirilli

Mark A Adiletta

James M Casella

Thomas Jay Wyble

Marc Dennis Daniels

Michael C Weisberg

Survi Kyal

Kathleen A Feinberg

Scott Jong Ho Limb

Dan Leo Massopust

Antonio L Williams

Steven Ross Slotto

Richard Hiram Berg

John Frank Walsh

Sharon S Berger

Lawrence H Herko

Yuanjia Zhang

Michael Yu Tak Young

Fredrick A Warner

Steven V Korol

Britton T Pinson

Kee Ryu

Curtis Douglass Keller

Beverly Russo

Lee M Oien

Lina Bian

Thomas Long

John P Meyeres

Priyaanka D Guggilapu

Timothy Trang

An imaging blanket comprises a base comprising an elastic polymer and sulfur. A barrier layer is on the base and a surface layer is on the barrier layer. The surface layer comprises an elastomer and a platinum catalyst.

Imaging blanket and variable data lithography system employing the imaging blanket

A method of operating a multi-nozzle extruder in an additive manufacturing system enables support structure to be formed while an object is also being formed. The method includes opening more than one nozzle in the multi-nozzle extruder, and operating an actuator with a controller to move the multi-nozzle extruder along a path to form a first group of multiple parallel ribbons of support structure simultaneously with material extruded from the more than one open nozzle.

System and method for providing three-dimensional object structural support with a multi-nozzle extruder

An extruder has a valve assembly configured to move pins to open and close the nozzles in a multi-nozzle extruder head independently. The pins of the valve assembly that are driven by actuators into and out of engagement with nozzles in the extruder head are positioned within sleeves that extend between the valve assembly and the extruder head. A gap is provided between the extruder head and the end of the sleeves proximate the extruder head to enable thermoplastic material leaking from the extruder that contacts the pins to remain in a melted or plastic state so the thermoplastic material does not interfere with the movement of the pins.

System and method for preserving valve member travel in a multi-nozzle extruder

An additive manufacturing system and method for improving the certainty of removing or etching excess substrate from a stack of printed substrate slices to arrive at a 3D object. The approach includes printing a pseudo image as a shell layer around a desired object slice with less polymer (e.g., thermoplastic) material than the 3D object solid layer slice. This slows the etching process when this pseudo image is reached. The pseudo image may be printed to surround the object polymer image on a printed substrate sheet as a shell that provides notice during the excess substrate removal/cleaning process that the desired polymer image is nearby and extra care must be taken to avoid removal of the desired polymer image. The pseudo image may have a 3D patterned surface that can be recognized by a person doing the sandblasting or recognized automatically by an automated 3D object finisher.

Patterned pre-stop for finishing additive manufactured 3D objects

An additive manufacturing system includes a heater for converting a filament of extrusion material into thermoplastic material. The heater has a channel configured to change the cross-sectional shape of the filament to a cross-sectional shape that has a greater surface area than the surface area of the filament before the heater receives the filament. The channel of the heater can also be configured to drive the center portion of the filament toward the heated walls of the channel and to mix thermoplastic material in the channel while exposing the center portion of the filament to the heated wall of the channel.

Filament heaters configured to facilitate thermal treatment of filaments for extruder heads in three-dimensional object printers

An additive manufacturing system has a controller configured to modify numerical control programming instructions to form interlocking structures that improve object structural integrity in the Z-direction. The interlocking structures are produced by forming one layer with swaths that are separated by gaps and another layer that is formed over the gaps to fill the gaps and lay over the swaths forming the gaps.

System and method for operating a multi-nozzle extruder during additive manufacturing

A method of operating an extruder assembly in a three-dimensional object printer translates and rotates an extruder body having an extrusion slot to produce three-dimensional objects more quickly and with greater precision. The method also includes rotating and moving one or more shutter bodies with respect to the extrusion slot to form a continuous filament of material of various sizes and shapes.

Method for operating an extruder assembly in a three-dimensional object printer

An additive manufacturing system has a plurality of manifolds in an extruder. Each manifold is connected to at least one nozzle of the extruder so the at least one nozzle extrudes thermoplastic material through a corresponding aperture in a faceplate mounted to the extruder. A plurality of valves is configured between each manifold and each nozzle connected to the manifold so the nozzles connected to a manifold extrude thermoplastic material from the manifold selectively. The faceplate is also configured for rotation about an axis perpendicular to the faceplate so different orientations of the nozzles and the apertures of the faceplate can be obtained. The different manifolds of the extruder enable a plurality of thermoplastic materials having different properties to be extruded simultaneously so the materials can join to one another while the materials are at an elevated temperature.

Single extruder configuration that enables multi-color extrusions in three-dimensional object printers

An apparatus changes the temperature of thermoplastic material in an extruder head to reduce the time for producing an object. The apparatus includes a cooling device located near the one or more nozzles of the extruder head to change the temperature of the thermoplastic material extruded by the extruder head. The apparatus cools the thermoplastic material to enhance the formation of exterior object features. A heater can also be positioned near the nozzle zone to heat the thermoplastic material to reduce the time for raising the viscosity of the thermoplastic material for forming interior regions of the object.

System for operating extruder heads in three-dimensional object printers

An additive manufacturing system opens the valves in an extruder needed to form a swath and operates an actuator to move the extruder through a transition region with those valves open to establish an amount of extrusion material between a faceplate of the extruder and a portion of an object being formed that is adequate for formation of a swath. The length of the transition region is determined with reference to a viscosity of the material being extruded and a speed at which the extruder is moved to form the swath. The transition region can be perpendicular to a path of the extruder to form the swath or aligned with the path of the extruder to form the swath.

Method for operating an extruder in a three-dimensional (3D) object printer to improve layer formation

A controller operates a first actuator to produce relative movement between a multi-nozzle extrusion printhead and a support member along a predetermined path for one layer of a three-dimensional printed object. The multi-nozzle extrusion printhead includes a housing with a chamber, a valve assembly having a plurality of passageways, and a planar member having a plurality of nozzles. The passageways of the valve assembly and the nozzles of the planar member are connected to one another in a one-to-one correspondence and valve members of the valve assembly are operated to open and close melted extruded material flow to the nozzles selectively and independently.

Multi-nozzle extruder for use in three-dimensional object printers

A method of operating an additive manufacturing system feeds solid extrusion material into a heater using a slip clutch coupled to an actuator of a mechanical driver to supply thermoplastic material into a manifold in an extruder head. The method sets a speed of the actuator so the actuator operates at a rotational speed that is slightly greater than the rotational speed of the mechanical mover. This method helps maintain the pressure of the thermoplastic material in the manifold of the extruder head in a predetermined range no matter how many nozzles are opened in the extruder head.

Method for operating a constant pressure filament driver to an extruder head in a three-dimensional object printer

An extruder head has an arrangement of multiple nozzles in the faceplate that avoids aligning the multiple nozzles at angular orientations from the 0&#xb0;-180&#xb0; axis and 90&#xb0;-270&#xb0; axis intersection at the center of the faceplate. The extruder head includes a housing having a faceplate with a plurality of nozzles that are equally spaced from one another when the nozzles are projected onto a first axis in a plane of the faceplate and the nozzles are equally spaced from one another when projected onto a second axis in the plane of the faceplate that is orthogonal to the first axis. Movement of the extruder head along any angular path from the intersection of the first axis and the second axis in the plane of the faceplate enables at least one nozzle in the plurality of nozzles to not be aligned with any other nozzle.

Optimized nozzle arrangement for an extruder head used in an additive manufacturing system

An additive manufacturing system operates an actuator to move an extruder with reference to a selected first zig-zag pattern to sparsely fill an interior region of an object by extruding a swath of thermoplastic material that has straight portions connected by angled portions. After a first pass using the first zig-zag pattern is completed, a second zig-zag pattern is used to form a complementary swath that forms rigid structure with the first swath. Use of the two patterns is alternated to sparsely fill the interior region in multiple layers of the object until a predetermined distance from a solid fill structure or surface is detected. Transition patterns are then used to increase the density of the swaths in the interior region in the next successive layers of the object until the layer is reached where a solid fill surface is formed over the swaths formed using the transition patterns.

Method for operating a multi-nozzle extruder using zig-zag patterns that provide improved structural integrity

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Webster, NY, United States of America

Peter Johan Nystrom