Building apparatus and building method
AssigneeMimaki Engineering Co., Ltd.
InventorsKenji Harayama, Takuya Matsushima
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A building apparatus configured to build an object includes inkjet heads serving as a plurality of ejection heads, a scanning driver, and a maintenance unit configured to perform a maintenance of the inkjet head. The scanning driver allows a plurality of inkjet heads to perform at least a main scanning operation and allows the inkjet head to perform the main scanning operation multiple times until building of the object is completed. The maintenance unit performs the maintenance of the inkjet head in an interval between two successive main scanning operations and performs the predetermined maintenance for only part of a plurality of inkjet heads in each maintenance. Hence, building with high accuracy is performed more appropriately.
Claims16
A building apparatus configured to build a three-dimensional (3D) object, the building apparatus comprising:
- a plurality of ejection heads each configured to eject a material used for building the 3D object;
- a scanning driver configured to allow the ejection heads to perform a scanning operation of moving relative to the 3D object being built;
- and
- a maintenance unit configured to perform a maintenance operation of the ejection head,
- wherein the scanning driver allows the ejection heads to perform at least a main scanning operation of ejecting the material while moving in a main scanning direction relative to the 3D object being built, as the scanning operation, and allows the ejection head to perform the main scanning operation multiple times until building of the 3D object is completed, and
- wherein the maintenance unit performs the maintenance operation of the ejection head in an interval between two successive main scanning operations of the main scanning operation performed multiple times and performs the maintenance operation for only part of the ejection heads in each time of the maintenance operation performed in the interval between the two successive main scanning operations.
A building method of building a three-dimensional (3D) object, comprising:
- allowing a plurality of ejection heads to perform a scanning operation of moving relative to the 3D object being built, the ejection heads each ejecting a material used for building the 3D object;
- allowing a maintenance unit to perform a maintenance operation of the ejection head;
- allowing the ejection heads to perform at least a main scanning operation of ejecting the material while moving in a main scanning direction relative to the 3D object being built, as the scanning operation, and allowing the ejection head to perform the main scanning operation multiple times until building of the 3D object is completed;
- and
- allowing the maintenance unit to perform the maintenance operation of the ejection head in an interval between two successive main scanning operations of the main scanning operation performed multiple times and allowing the maintenance unit to perform the predetermined maintenance for only part of the ejection heads in each time of maintenance operation performed in the interval between the two successive main scanning operations.
A building apparatus configured to build a three-dimensional (3D) object, comprising:
- a plurality of ejection heads each configured to eject a material used for building the 3D object;
- an ultraviolet light source configured to emit ultraviolet rays;
- a scanning driver configured to allow the ejection heads to perform a scanning operation of moving relative to the 3D object being built;
- and
- a maintenance unit configured to perform the maintenance operation of the ejection head, wherein
- each of the ejection heads ejects the material to be cured by radiation of ultraviolet rays,
- the scanning driver allows the ejection heads to perform at least a main scanning operation of ejecting the material while moving in a main scanning direction relative to the 3D object being built, as the scanning operation, and allows the ejection head to perform the main scanning operation multiple times until building of the 3D object is completed,
- the ultraviolet light source emits ultraviolet rays during the main scanning operation to irradiate the material ejected by the ejection head with ultraviolet rays,
- the maintenance unit performs a maintenance operation of the ejection head in an interval between two successive main scanning operations of the main scanning operation performed multiple times, and
- in an interval between the two successive main scanning operations, the ultraviolet light source further irradiates a built surface of the 3D object with ultraviolet rays.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.