HK1205980B

HK1205980B - A controlling method and a printing method of a 3d printer with more than four printing heads

Info

Publication number: HK1205980B
Application number: HK15106425.5A
Authority: HK
Inventors: 王跃宣
Original assignee: 宁波高新区乐轩锐蓝智能科技有限公司
Filing date: 2015-07-06
Publication date: 2018-05-25

Abstract

The present invention provides a control method for a 3D printer with four or more print headsPrinting method,Including: obtaining the cross-sectional shape of the workpiece;Determine the minimum distance between two print heads as δ;Determine the number of print heads i,I is an even number ≥ 4;Determine K-1 parallel longitudinal lead wires in the cross-section,The K-1 longitudinal lead lines divide the cross-section into K equally sized longitudinal subregions,K＝Ni，Where N is a positive integer;Set a horizontally extending straight line within each longitudinal subregion to divide it into two final subregions of equal area;And all the horizontally extending straight lines are connected end-to-end to form a horizontally extending polyline;At each intersection point between the polyline and the longitudinal lead line, the center is the circleA middle conflict area with a radius of not less than δ '=8/√ 2 forming a circle;And the outer circumference of the circle forms 2K non conflicting subregions with the polyline and longitudinal lead lines.

Description

Control method and printing method of 3D printer with more than four printing heads

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of 3D printing, in particular to a control method and a printing method of a 3D printer with more than four printing heads.

Background

3D printing is a new type of forming technology, with filler build-up type printing technology being the most common 3D printing technology. The 3D printer in the prior art is generally divided into an upper layer and a lower layer, wherein the upper layer is a printing head and an XY transmission structure, and the lower layer is a carrying platform. Wherein the upper XY transmission structure comprises a printing head capable of moving on a plane formed by an X axis and a Y axis, and the lower XY transmission structure is provided with a loading platform. The loading platform of the 3D printer in the prior art can ascend or descend along the Z-axis direction, so that 3D workpieces can be printed in layers.

In the printing process, the filler accumulation type printing technology is to fuse fillers by using a heated printing head, and stack the fused fillers at a specified position by controlling the printing head, so that a 3D model is converted into a solid 3D workpiece. The most great advantages of the forming mode are as follows: the filler has low cost and less waste, and the printer has a simple structure and is easy to maintain; but the disadvantages are also evident: the printing speed is slow. Taking the Makerbot printer as an example, the time required to print a 5 centimeter square fully filled square is approximately twenty minutes, often several hours to print a workpiece that is more bulky or structurally complex. In the prior art, a 3D printer has a three-print-head structure, that is, two print heads fixed together are used for 3D printing, and the two print heads are loaded with fillers with different properties, for example, one print head is filled with a main material + a supporting material, and the other print head is filled with a main color + a decorative color, so as to stack different materials at different positions of a model. Since the two print heads are fixed together, their X-axis and Y-axis coordinates are almost identical, and only one print head is operating at any time, the improvement in printing efficiency is extremely limited.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a control method and a printing method of a 3D printer with more than four printing heads, which can improve the printing speed by simultaneously and cooperatively working a plurality of printing heads to print the cross section of a workpiece.

In order to achieve the above object, an embodiment of the present invention provides a method for controlling a 3D printer with four or more print heads, including:

acquiring the shape of the cross section of the workpiece; determining a minimum spacing between two print heads as;

determining the number i of printing heads, i is an even number which is greater than or equal to 4; k-1 mutually parallel longitudinal outgoing lines are determined in the cross section, the K-1 longitudinal outgoing lines equally divide the cross section into K longitudinal sub-regions with equal areas, K is Ni, and N is a positive integer;

setting a transversely extending straight line in each longitudinal subarea to divide each longitudinal subarea into two final subareas with equal areas; and all the transversely extending straight lines are connected end to form a transversely extending fold line;

each intersection point of the fold line and the longitudinal outgoing line is a circle center and is not less thanA middle collision zone forming a circle for the radius; and the periphery of the circle, the fold line and the longitudinal outgoing line form 2K non-confliction subareas.

Wherein the starting point and the end point of the broken line are respectively the points of the periphery of the cross section, which are positioned at the farthest ends of two sides.

Meanwhile, the embodiment of the invention also provides a printing method of a 3D printer with more than four printing heads, which comprises the following steps:

determining circular intermediate collision areas and non-collision sub-areas by using the method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims;

synchronously printing a circular middle conflict area by using a plurality of printing heads of the 3D printer; synchronously printing the non-conflict sub-regions by using a plurality of printing heads of the 3D printer;

wherein synchronously printing the non-conflicting sub-regions with a plurality of printheads of the 3D printer comprises:

dividing the printing heads into M groups, wherein each group comprises 2 printing heads, namely N is 2M; dividing the non-conflict printing sub-areas into P groups, wherein each group comprises a circular middle conflict area and four non-conflict sub-areas on the periphery; and synchronously printing two opposite conflict subareas by using the two printing heads of each group, synchronously printing the M groups of printing heads, and oppositely arranging two non-conflict subareas printed by the two adjacent printing heads of the two adjacent groups.

The technical scheme of the invention has the following beneficial effects:

the technical scheme provides a control method and a printing method of a 3D printer with a plurality of printing heads (an even number more than or equal to 4), so that the printing heads can be prevented from colliding during printing, and the plurality of printing heads can be adopted to print simultaneously so as to improve the printing efficiency.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a motion trajectory plane of three print heads and a carrier plane of a bottom of a 3D printer with three print heads;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the position between three printheads;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a minimum spacing between two printheads;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment employing 4 printheads.

Detailed Description

In order to make the technical problems, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the following detailed description is given with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific examples.

The movement locus of the print head of the 3D printer in the prior art is a plane, so if a plurality of print heads independent from each other are arranged, the movement locus planes of the print heads are not overlapped, for example, the 3D printer shown in fig. 1 is a 3 print head. And the distal ends of the print heads must be in a plane so that a print side of the workpiece (i.e., a cross-section of the workpiece) can be printed by the print heads simultaneously, as shown in fig. 2. The principle of the 3D printer using two print heads is the same, and the problem of print head collision during operation also occurs.

Therefore, the embodiment of the invention divides the printing area into a plurality of conflict-free areas, and then uses a plurality of printing heads to respectively print so as to prevent the conflict among the printing heads. After the printing area is simply divided into L sub-printing areas, the problem that two printing heads simultaneously print two adjacent sub-printing areas is easily caused during printing, so that the printing head conflict occurs at the seam of the two adjacent sub-printing areas. Meanwhile, because the shapes of workpieces printed by the 3D printer cannot be completely the same, the prior art cannot automatically generate a collision-free printing area by a preset method and control a plurality of printing heads of the printer to cooperatively print together. If the method for dividing the printing area is too coarse, the improvement range of the printing efficiency is not large, which is a waste of expensive hardware resources.

In view of the above situation, embodiments of the present invention provide a control method and a printing method for a 3D printer with four or more than four printing heads in an even number, which can automatically divide the printing heads into a plurality of sub-printing areas according to the number of the printing heads without considering the shape of the printing workpiece in advance, control the printing heads to automatically print the workpiece without collision, and enable the printing heads to distribute the work as uniformly as possible to improve the printing efficiency.

The embodiment of the invention provides a control method of a 3D printer with more than four (including four) printing heads, which comprises the following steps:

Radius ofThe circular middle conflict area can be formed to ensure that no conflict occurs, and the circular middle conflict area can be enlarged, so that the application is not limited to the circular middle conflict area and only needs to be not smaller than the radiusAnd (4) finishing.

While the embodiment shown in fig. 4 is a four printhead embodiment, embodiments with 6 printheads or even more printheads need only extend the hypothetical cross-section to the left or right by four non-conflicting print zones.

Determining the leftmost point A on the cross section₀And the rightmost point A_k；

Continuously using dichotomy to make k-1 straight lines I parallel to the Y axis of the section₁、I₂、I₃(ii) a These three lines divide the cross-section into four equal area regions. Then from A₀Drawing a horizontal line bisecting the left region into P1 and P2 for the starting point, the horizontal line being parallel to the straight line l₁Intersect at point A₁(ii) a Then again from A₁Drawing a horizontal line bisecting the second left side into P3 and P4 as a starting point, the horizontal line and the straight line l₁Intersect at point A₂. And so on until drawing A_k. The cross section has now been cut into 8 equal area regions. Then at A₁、A₂、A₃Making a circle with a radius not less than

The four print heads are then divided into two groups, the first group being responsible for printing P1, P2, P3, P4 with the center of circle A₁The circle of (a); the second group is responsible for printing P5, P6, P7 and P8 with the circle center A₃The circle of (c). When printing, two opposite conflict subareas are printed synchronously, the M groups of printing heads print synchronously, and two non-conflict subareas printed by two adjacent printing heads of two adjacent groups are also arranged oppositely. That is, the first group of printheads may print the two opposing non-conflicting sub-regions P1 and P4 first, and the second group of printheads may need to print P5 and P8 first. Of course, it is also possible to print P2 and P3 first and P6 and P7 second synchronously.

While printing A₁、A₂、A₃Any three of the four print heads may be used without limitation. And the circular middle conflict area can be printed firstly, or the non-conflict subarea can be printed firstly.

While the foregoing is directed to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

Claims

1. A method for controlling a 3D printer with more than four printing heads is characterized by comprising the following steps:

determining the number i of printing heads, wherein i is an even number which is more than or equal to 4; k-1 mutually parallel longitudinal outgoing lines are determined in the cross section, the K-1 longitudinal outgoing lines equally divide the cross section into K longitudinal sub-regions with equal areas, K is Ni, and N is a positive integer;

2. The method of controlling a 3D printer having four or more print heads according to claim 1, wherein the start point and the end point of the folding line are points at the farthest ends on both sides of the outer periphery of the cross section, respectively.

3. A printing method of a 3D printer with more than four printing heads is characterized by comprising the following steps:

determining circular intermediate collision areas and non-collision sub-areas by using the method of any one of claims 1-2;

synchronously printing a circular middle conflict area by using a plurality of printing heads of the 3D printer; synchronously printing the non-collision sub-regions with a plurality of print heads of the 3D printer;

wherein synchronously printing the non-collision sub-regions with a plurality of printheads of the 3D printer comprises:

dividing the print heads into M groups, each group having 2 print heads, namely W2M; dividing the non-conflict printing sub-areas into P groups, wherein each group comprises a circular middle conflict area and four non-conflict sub-areas on the periphery; and synchronously printing two opposite conflict subareas by using the two printing heads of each group, synchronously printing the M groups of printing heads, and oppositely arranging two non-conflict subareas printed by the two adjacent printing heads of the two adjacent groups.