The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 09, 1998
Filed:
Nov. 13, 1995
John Samuel Batchelder, Somers, NY (US);
Robert R Jackson, Millbrook, NY (US);
Stratasys Inc., Eden Prairie, MN (US);
Abstract
An improved extrusion-based manufacturing system includes one or more extruders, with each extruder containing at least two stages of increasing pressurization. In a preferred embodiment, a first stage of pressurization is created by the motion of a solid wafer of thermoplastic through an orifice into a heater chamber. In another preferred embodiment, the wafers are stored in removable, electronically tagged, cassettes and are removed therefrom by a stapler mechanism which feeds the wafers from the cassette to a tractor feed mechanism on demand. In each embodiment, a second stage of pressurization is provided by a pump, with the first stage pressurization maintaining a flow of thermoplastic to the pump under all expected pump rates.