Abstract
Three-dimensional print systems are designed to physically reproduce user defined 3D geometries. For additive systems these part geometries are often accumulated in a progressive fashion, such as layer by layer. For many materials, such as plastic polyamides, great care is taken to define part geometries and the printer likewise is engineered to achieve a specific geometric fidelity. Printing or re-printing is generally the focal process to achieve a desired geometry. For aesthetic purposes, 3D printed plastic parts may be dyed to achieve a desired visual appearance. The effectiveness of these liquid dye baths may benefit from heat. We propose that heated dye baths can also be used as a system for geometric modifications. Specifically, given a 3D printed plastic part, fasteners and a reference geometric part, the heated dye bath can be used to modify the part geometry. Prior solutions to part geometry modifications include computational compensation solutions and machining of features after printing, such as CNC milling. In contrast to the non-linear alterations made with our approach, machining is frequently restricted to additional additive or subtractive processes. For computational compensations a print-scan-print cycle is required to achieve warpage correction. Unfortunately, computational compensation can introduce stair-stepping as planar parts are printed with small amounts of curvature to achieve printed planarity.
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Recommended Citation
INC, HP, "System for Geometric Modifications", Technical Disclosure Commons, (April 25, 2024)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/6904