Makerbot Industries, LLC

Opentrons Labworks Inc.

Taylor S Goodman

William B Buel

Vishnu Anantha

Jackson Seidenberg

Aljosa Kemperle

Samuel Holland

Jonah Gold

Bryan Vaccaro

Kevin C Rand

Jonathan Preston Badal

Andrew Sigler

Nicholas Pease Starno

Marguerite Siboni

Mark Waller

Peter Joseph Schmehl

Mark Palmer

Robert J Steiner

Michael C Pappas

Christopher James Yarka

Carlos Fernandez Arreola

Jack W Poon

Amanda I Couto

Vishnu Ananatha

Eric Justin Macneil

Systems and methods applicable, for instance, to pipette robots. A pipette robot can perform one or more operations regarding deck calibration, one or more operations regarding pipette tip/probe calibration, one or more operations regarding pipette tip pick up, and/or one or more operations regarding tip ejection.

Systems and methods for pipette robots

An extruder of a three-dimensional printer may be coupled with one or more filament tubes, each filament tube having its own supply of filament. The extruder may include a drive gear rotatable in a first direction to advance a filament from a filament tube toward at least one extrusion opening defined by the extruder and rotatable in a second direction, opposite the first direction, to advance another filament from a different filament tube toward the at least one extrusion opening defined by the extruder. Also, as one filament is advanced by the drive gear, another filament may be retracted by the drive gear to improve the switching of filaments in a three-dimensional printing process. The extruder may work in conjunction with a filament supply-side drive system that feeds filament into one or more filament tubes, reducing a pull force exerted by the drive gear of the extruder.

Multi-filament three-dimensional printing

A multi-extruder includes a passive height control mechanism that adjusts the relative height of its extruders without the use of additional, active components. Further, the height control mechanism may employ ramped control surfaces that mitigate noise and vibration by gradually transferring vertical loads while transferring from one active extruder to another.

Extruder height toggling

A three-dimensional printer uses its extruder and build platform to properly orient the build platform within a working volume. In a multi-point leveling operation, the extruder is moved to the z-axis origin at a number of x-y positions within the plane of the build platform, and the height of the build platform is adjusted to meet the extruder at the origin. If the build platform is a meltable material such as a plastic, then this leveling process must be performed while the extruder is cool. A homing operation may be performed periodically after leveling in order to realign the z-axis positions of the build platform and extruder. A non-meltable contact point may be usefully provided so that homing can be performed while the extruder is hot, such as immediately before a build or between a number of builds.

Build platform leveling and homing

A three-dimensional scanner uses a rotatable mounting structure to secure a laser line source in a manner that permits rotation of a projected laser line about an axis of the laser, along with movement of the laser through an arc in order to conveniently position and orient the resulting laser line. Where the laser scanner uses a turntable or the like, a progressive calibration scheme may be employed with a calibration fixture to calibrate a camera, a turntable, and a laser for coordinated use as a three-dimensional scanner. Finally, parameters for a scan may be automatically created to control, e.g., laser intensity and camera exposure based on characteristics of a scan subject such as surface characteristics or color gradient.

Laser scanning systems and methods

Three-dimensional printer frame

Filament spool holder for three-dimensional printer

Growing community of inventors

Chappaqua, NY, United States of America

Taylor S Goodman