KR20170000295A

KR20170000295A - Three-dimensional printer with selective material feed unit for multi-color output

Info

Publication number: KR20170000295A
Application number: KR1020150089349A
Authority: KR
Inventors: 윤기호
Original assignee: 캐논코리아비즈니스솔루션 주식회사
Priority date: 2015-06-23
Filing date: 2015-06-23
Publication date: 2017-01-02

Abstract

The present invention relates to a three-dimensional printer capable of outputting multicolor with a selective material conveying device, and more particularly, to a three-dimensional printer in which a raw material is extruded and sequentially stacked on an output bed to realize a three- Dimensional printer capable of sequentially outputting various color materials without loss of time and a multi-color output by having a selective material conveying device which does not change the size of the apparatus or changes the power used, It is possible to exchange raw materials in a short period of time, and it is also advantageous in terms of power consumption and storage.

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to a three-dimensional printer capable of outputting multicolor by providing a selective material conveying device,

The present invention relates to a three-dimensional printer capable of outputting multiple colors by having a selective material conveying device, and more particularly, to a three-dimensional printer in which a raw material is extruded and sequentially stacked on an output bed to realize a three- Dimensional printer capable of sequentially outputting materials of various colors without any special operation or time loss and having a selective material conveying device which does not change the size of the apparatus or the power used,

Recently, three-dimensional printing technology for outputting the three-dimensional shape of the object at a low cost in the prototype manufacturing or small quantity production of various kinds at the prototype development stage is getting popular.

3D printing is performed by analyzing the three-dimensional shape of an object through a three-dimensional graphic design program and generating a combination of two-dimensional cross-sectional shape data. Then, raw materials such as ABS and PLA It is a technique of forming a three-dimensional shape of an object by forming it on an output bed by various methods.

In the three-dimensional printing, there are a FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) method or a FFF (Fused Filament Fabrication) method in which a raw material is extruded and sequentially laminated on an output bed to realize a three-dimensional shape. The powder is melted with a high- There are various SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) systems for realizing a three-dimensional shape, and SLA (Stereolithography Apparatus) systems for projecting a laser beam into a water tank containing a liquid photocurable resin.

Since the first-generation three-dimensional printer using the FDM method or the FFF method, which is a conventional laminate molding method, is capable of supplying only one raw material from the heater through the supply line of the raw material, It was hard to satisfy the desire. In order to output multicolor in the first-generation three-dimensional printer, it includes a function of temporarily stopping and restarting the output in the three-dimensional printer, so that the output is stopped in the portion to output the desired color, Or when there is no function to resume after stopping, it has been necessary to use a method of quickly replacing the raw material having the color corresponding to the time during which the raw material is supplied during operation.

However, in the case of the former method, since the raw material is manually exchanged, it takes a long time to exchange and it takes a lot of effort by the user to express various colors. In the latter case, in addition to the inconvenience of electrons, There is a risk of discarding all the printouts that were output until then. In both the former and latter, it was a task that only skilled users could do.

Then, a second generation 3D printer using FDM or FFF method was introduced. However, since the second generation also has a structure in which a plurality of nozzle units capable of supplying only one raw material to the heater are attached, it is merely a structure capable of outputting a specified number of colors, and since a plurality of units are installed in total, There was a side effect that the appearance size of the skin was increased. Also, since a large number of electric currents are used by a plurality of heaters attached to a plurality of nozzle units, it is required to be inconvenient to use.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an FFF-type three-dimensional printer capable of outputting various colors at a high speed without any user's operation.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a three-dimensional printer which reduces the external appearance size of the entire three-dimensional printer, reduces the amount of current used, and reduces the burden on the user and contributes to the environment by using one heat source.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide an assemblable additional material standby unit which is capable of mounting a plurality of materials as desired, thereby widening the possibility of expansion and providing output of various color combinations.

As a means for solving the technical problem described above, there is a technique of providing a material standby unit on the upper part of an extruding motor, automatically selecting a desired raw material among the raw materials in a plurality of material standby units, .

According to the present invention, the user of the FFF type three-dimensional printer can exchange raw materials in a short period of time without any additional operation, and can provide a three-dimensional printer advantageous in terms of power consumption and storage.

1 is a schematic diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a schematic diagram of a process for supplying material 2 according to one embodiment of the present invention.
3 is a schematic diagram of a material selection process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art can easily carry out the present invention. The present invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. In order to clearly explain the present invention, parts not related to the description are omitted.

Furthermore, when a part is referred to as being "comprising" or "comprising" an element, it is understood that it may include other elements as well, without excluding other elements unless specifically stated otherwise.

1 is a schematic diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention.

1, the present invention includes a sorting motor 110, a material waiting unit 120 configured to be assembled, a material pressure sensor 130, a material detecting sensor (not shown), a material waiting section A cutter driving motor 211 for operating the cutter 210, a cutter 210 for cutting the material being injected for changing the material, A motor 300, an extrusion gear 310 provided in a rotating part of the extrusion motor, an extrusion roller 320, a heater part 400, a nozzle part 500, and a processor (not shown). And more specifically includes a material supply roller 141 in the material standby unit.

Different from the general FFF method, when a material is mounted on the three-dimensional printer according to the present invention, the material is not directly injected between the extrusion gear 310 and the extrusion roller 320, And a material guide 200 is provided in a lower portion thereof in a non-contact manner. A lower portion of the material guide 200 is provided with an extrusion gear 310 and an extrusion roller 320 capable of feeding the material to the nozzle unit 500. The material is injected through the nozzle 400 through the heater 400 Structure.

The material waiting unit 120 has a small box shape and the plurality of material waiting units 120 have a structure that can be assembled with each other. A plurality of material waiting units 120 can be combined before assembling to the sorting motor 110 to increase the variety of material colors. The material waiting unit 120 includes a recognition chip for informing a three-dimensional printer and a program of a color of the material.

When generating three-dimensional data of a model to be output to a three-dimensional printer, when a model is to be output using different colors, it is possible to set an area of a model that is desired to be output using software of different colors. In order to facilitate understanding, the material to be exchanged is referred to as the material 1 for convenience, and the material to be exchanged by the nozzle 500 is denoted as the material 2 for the material which was being outputted.

3 is a schematic diagram of a material selection process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3, the feed roller 141 included in the material waiting unit 120 of the material 1 is pushed toward the sorting motor 110 in order to inject the material 1 for the first time, So that it can be transferred to the material guide 200 due to the rotation. The material 1 transferred to the material guide 200 moves to the nozzle unit 500 through the heater 400 by the force of the extrusion gear 310 and the extrusion roller 320. The feed roller 141 of all the materials except for the material 1 moves in the direction of the sorting motor 110 so that all the other materials are fed to the material guide 200. [ To prevent it from being transported in the direction. Further, only the feed roller 141 of the material 1 is released from contact with the sorting motor 110 so that the material 1 is not interfered in outputting the material. A method of confirming that the material is transferred between the extrusion roller 320 and the extrusion gear 310 includes a tension sensor on the extrusion roller so that when the roller receives a force in the outward direction, A method of transmitting a signal, or the like can be used.

It is clear that the selection motor 110 does not rotate when all other materials are fixed. This is because it is the contact for the fixing of the material rather than the contact for the supply of the material.

When injecting the last area of the model to be output as material 1, the processor can grasp the amount of material 1 to be used in advance. The reason why the above amount can be grasped is that the distance from the cutter 210 to the nozzle 500 can be specified in advance at the time of designing. The above distance is referred to as a material 1 injection section. When the amount of the material to be used further becomes equal to the amount of the material remaining in the material 1 ejection section, the cutter 210 on the extrusion gear 310 and the extrusion roller 320 operates to cut off the output material.

When the cutter 210 is operated to cut off the material being output, the material 1 remaining in the material guide 200 is fed to the material waiting unit 120, which has been waiting for the material, Rotate and pull up. When the waiting of the material 1 ends, the material 2 waiting in the material waiting unit 120 is transferred to the nozzle unit 500 by rotating the motor. The material guide 200 is conveyed to the extrusion gear 310 and the extrusion roller 320 accurately regardless of whether the material guide 200 is located on the upper portion of the cross section of the material guide 200 do.

At this time, it is necessary to set the feed rate of the material 2 to be a little higher than the speed of the motor in which the current material 1 is being injected for a certain period of time so that the feed rate of the material 2 is not slower than the feed rate of the material 1.

Since the object of the present invention is to output the material 1 and the material 2 separately from each other, the material 1 and the material 2 should not be mixed with each other. However, when the material is changed, there is a possibility that the material 1 and the material 2 may be unintentionally mixed due to the debris buried in the nozzle 500 or the high temperature of the nozzle 500. Therefore, when the material 2 is injected, There is a need to remove it quickly. Therefore, when the output of the area to be output as the material 1 is completed, the nozzle part 500 moves out of the range of the output material, and the part where the material 1 and the material 2 are mixed is removed in advance . At this time, if the operation to remove the possibility of mixing is slow, the quality of the printout may be affected. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust the movement and injection speed of the nozzle more quickly than the normal output. When the removing operation is completed, the nozzle unit 500 moves to the place where the output is stopped again, and resumes the formation of the output. The cutter 210 can be used again according to the embodiment.

The foregoing has shown and described specific embodiments. However, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the technical idea of the present invention described in the following claims .

110: Selecting motor 120: Material waiting unit
130: material pressure sensor 140: material
141: Material supply roller 200: Material guide
210: cutter 211: cutter drive motor
300: Extrusion motor 310: Extrusion gear
320: extrusion roller 400: heater
500: Nozzle

Claims

In a three-dimensional printer having a selective material conveying device and capable of multicolor output,
A sorting motor for feeding the material to the nozzle;
A material waiting unit coupled to the sorting motor for waiting various materials;
A material supply roller provided inside the material waiting unit and adapted to bring the material into contact with the sorting motor in the direction of the material supply roller;
A material guide provided at the bottom of the sorting motor and having a shape of guiding the material to move in a predetermined direction because the entrance of the upper part is large and the exit of the lower part is small;
An extrusion motor provided under the material guide and for transferring the material to the nozzle section;
An extrusion gear provided in the extrusion motor for feeding the material to the nozzle unit;
And an extrusion roller provided on the opposite side of the extrusion gear and adapted to feed the material to the nozzle unit.

The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the extrusion roller is provided with a tensile force sensor to confirm that a material is transferred between the extrusion gear and the extrusion roller, and a three-dimensional printer capable of outputting multicolor by having the selective material feeding device.

The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the material standby unit has a structure that can be coupled with each other.

The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the sorting motor unit is provided with a selective material conveying device that minimizes the time required for changing the output material in the use of a conventional three-dimensional printer of an extrusion-based forming system, thereby enabling multicolor output.

The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the extrusion motor is capable of preparing the following material in advance for the selection motor without stopping the operation during injection.