Control of additive manufacturing systems including multiple laser energy sources
AssigneeVulcanForms Inc.
InventorPeter Colin Reeves-Hall
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Additive manufacturing systems and methods related to the selection and use of groups of laser pixels from an array of laser pixels including a plurality of laser pixels are disclosed. According to some embodiments a plurality of laser pixels may be divided into one or more groups of laser pixels based on one or more process parameters and/or based on the identification of failed laser pixels. The groups may be include fewer laser pixels than the overall array of laser pixels. In some embodiments, an additive manufacturing system may switch between laser pixel groups during a manufacturing process to provide redundancy and/or to enable continued operation of the system even when laser pixel failures occur.
Claims50
An additive manufacturing system comprising:
- a build surface;
- a plurality of laser energy sources;
- an optics assembly configured to direct laser energy from the plurality of laser energy sources toward the build surface to form a corresponding plurality of laser pixels on the build surface;
- and
- at least one processor configured to:
- identify viable laser pixels of the plurality of laser pixels based on at least one measured performance metric;
- identify one or more groups of contiguous viable laser pixels of the viable laser pixels;
- select a group of the one or more groups of contiguous viable laser pixels;
- and
- form one or more parts on the build surface using the selected group of contiguous viable laser pixels.
A method for operating an additive manufacturing system, the method comprising:
- identifying viable laser pixels of a plurality of laser pixels based on at least one measured performance metric;
- identifying one or more groups of contiguous viable laser pixels of the laser pixels;
- selecting a group of the one or more groups of contiguous viable laser pixels;
- and
- forming one or more parts on a build surface using the selected group of contiguous viable laser pixels.
A non-transitory computer readable medium including processor executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, perform a method comprising:
- identifying viable laser pixels of a plurality of laser pixels based on at least one measured performance metric;
- identifying one or more groups of contiguous viable laser pixels of a plurality of laser pixels;
- selecting a group of the one or more groups of contiguous viable laser pixels;
- and
- forming one or more parts on a build surface using the selected group of contiguous viable laser pixels.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.