JP3770206B2 - Manufacturing equipment for 3D shaped objects - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing a three-dimensional shaped object.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Conventionally, as a method of manufacturing a three-dimensional shaped object, a powder material such as metal powder or resin powder or a photocurable resin liquid is used as a formed object manufacturing material, and a light beam is irradiated to the formed object manufacturing material. There is a method of forming a three-dimensional shaped object by curing.
[0003]
As an example, there is a manufacturing method shown in Japanese Patent No. 2620353. In this method, a sintered layer is formed by irradiating a predetermined portion of a layer of an inorganic or organic powder material with a light beam to sinter the powder at the corresponding location, and a new powder material is formed on the sintered layer. A new sintered layer integrated with the underlying sintered layer is formed by irradiating a predetermined portion of the powder layer with a light beam and sintering the powder at the corresponding location. By repeating, a powder sintered part (three-dimensional shaped object) in which a plurality of sintered layers are laminated and integrated is created, and a desired model that is design data (CAD data) of the three-dimensional shaped object The manufacturing apparatus controls the irradiation of the light beam based on the processing data (CAM data) created based on the cross-sectional shape data of each layer generated by slicing to the layer thickness, and manufactures a three-dimensional shaped object having an arbitrary shape. Can be used in manufacturing methods such as cutting To a feature that can be obtained a molded article rapidly desired shape.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
By the way, in the three-dimensional modeling manufacturing method as described above, a powder material other than the sintered (solidified) powder material becomes a surplus powder material, and this surplus powder material is collected by a vacuum device or the like after the modeled object is completed. However, every time the sintered layer is formed, the blade and the surface of the sintered layer are leveled with a blade, so that excess portions of the sintered layer are scraped off and recovered in a state of being mixed with excess powder material in the recovery tank. . At that time, the powder material in a solid state or the sintered product scraped from the sintered layer becomes an impurity and cannot be reused as it is, resulting in high costs due to waste.
[0005]
On the other hand, a powder material has been ordered by a processor equipped with a manufacturing apparatus for a three-dimensional shaped object when the amount of inventory has been reduced to some extent compared with a material distributor. For this reason, the processing company has a heavy burden such as inventory management of powder materials and processing of orders.
[0006]
The present invention has been made in view of the above points. The object of the present invention is to enable the separation and reuse of the recovered surplus powder material and to automatically recover the reusable powder material. An object of the present invention is to provide a manufacturing apparatus for a three-dimensional shaped object that is highly convenient .
[0011]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, in the invention of the apparatus for manufacturing a three-dimensional shaped article according to claim 1 , based on the powder layer forming means for forming a layer of an inorganic or organic powder material and three-dimensional processing data. A three-dimensional structure provided with a three-dimensional shaped object creating means for forming a three-dimensional shaped object by irradiating a predetermined part of the powder layer with a light beam to sinter the powder layer at the corresponding part and laminating the sintered layer In the manufacturing apparatus of the shaped object, the removing means for removing the surplus powder material on the surface part and / or the unnecessary part of the shaped object, the means for collecting the removed surplus powder material, and the amount of powder material using the processing data An information sending means for sending to the outside as data for management, and a separating part for separating the surplus powder material removed by the removing means into a non-reusable component and a reusable powder material; Isolated A recovery unit for respectively collecting the available powdered material, that comprises a classification unit that is configured in a stock unit for stocking the components of the non-reusable characterized.
[0014]
Invention of an apparatus for producing a three-dimensionally shaped object according to claim 2 is the invention of claim 1, the pre-fixed amount filled cartridges of a container of the powder material is mounted, flour powder was drained powder material from cartridges of the container A supply means for supplying to the layer forming means is provided.
[0015]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Embodiments of the present invention will be described below.
(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view of the manufacturing apparatus 1 used in the present embodiment. An inorganic or organic powder material supplied on a lifting table 20 that moves up and down in a space surrounded by a modeling tank 25 is shown. The powder layer forming means 2 for forming the powder layer 10 having a predetermined thickness by leveling with the squeezing blade 21 and the laser output from the laser oscillator 30 are applied to the powder layer 10 via a scanning optical system such as a galvanometer mirror 31. Sintered layer forming means 3 for sintering powder by irradiation to form a sintered layer 11 is provided, and an XY drive mechanism (linear motion linear motor in terms of speeding up) is provided at the base of the powder layer forming means 2. A removal means 4 provided with a milling head 41 via 40 is preferable.
[0016]
Production of the three-dimensional shaped article in this product is an inorganic or organic powder on the modeling base surface of the upper surface of the lifting table 20 which is an adjusting means for adjusting the relative distance between the sintered layer forming means 3 and the sintered layer. The first powder layer 10 is formed by supplying the material K from the supply unit 5 (see FIG. 1) and leveling with the blade 21, and the portion of the powder layer 10 to be cured is irradiated with a light beam (laser). Then, the powder is sintered to form the sintered layer 11 integrated with the base. Thereafter, the lift table 20 is slightly lowered, and the inorganic or organic powder material K is supplied again from the supply unit 5 (see FIG. 1) and is smoothed by the blade 21 to form the second powder layer 10. The portion of the powder layer 10 to be cured is irradiated with a light beam (laser) to sinter the powder to form the sintered layer 11 integrated with the lower sintered layer 11, and the lifting table 20 is lowered. Then, a new powder layer 10 is formed, and the process of making the required portion a sintered layer 11 by irradiating with a light beam is repeated to produce a target three-dimensional shaped object X.
[0017]
FIG. 1 shows a system configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention. A manufacturing apparatus 1 installed on a processor A side includes a blade 21, surplus powder material recovered by a recovery means using a vacuum apparatus 6, and a blade 21. The surplus powder material recovered when the surface of the sintered layer 11 and the surface of the powder layer 10 are leveled is stored in a recovery tank 7 provided in the manufacturing apparatus 1. Y is a surplus powder material containing impurities such as a sintered product obtained by removing a part of the sintered layer 11 by the removing means 4 and a lump of powder material. 6a is a collection hose.
[0018]
Note that the manufacturing apparatus 1 in the figure shows only the main part of the present invention, and other configurations are omitted.
[0019]
The control unit 8 that controls the manufacturing apparatus 1 is provided with an information transmission / reception unit 80 for transferring data to and from the sales management server 9 on the material distributor side via the network NT such as the Internet. In starting production of a new three-dimensional shaped object X, the sales management server 9 is remotely accessed from the information transmitting / receiving unit 80 under the control of the control unit 8, and the processing data loaded in the control unit 8 Is transferred to the sales management server 9. The sales management server 9 is composed of a computer system provided with an information communication unit 9a that transmits and receives information through the network NT. From the data processing described later, calculation of material price, determination of necessity of delivery of powder material, Functions necessary for powder material sales management from billing processing to invoicing processing are realized by causing the central processing unit of the computer system to execute application software.
[0020]
1 shows a system in which one manufacturing apparatus 1 and a sales management server 9 are connected by a network NT for the sake of simplification, but management of the manufacturing apparatus 1 by a plurality of processors is performed. Needless to say, the manufacturing apparatus 1 is connected to the network NT for the purpose.
[0021]
Next, the sales management process of this embodiment will be described.
[0022]
First, the processing data transferred to the sales management server 9 includes the material type used in the manufacturing apparatus 1, the weight of the supplied powder material per powder layer, and the supply frequency α (sintering) of the powder material K from the supply means 50. (Corresponding to the number of layer stacks), light beam irradiation area and stack thickness of each powder layer 11. As shown in FIG. 3, the sales management server 9 obtains data of material specific gravity and material unit price corresponding to the material type from the material database DB1. Search is performed (step S2). After this search, the amount of powder material K used (weight) is calculated and the amount of surplus powder material Y (reusable weight, non-reusable weight) is calculated (step S3).
[0023]
In this case, the used weight Wp of the powder material K is
It is obtained from the weight of feed powder material per layer (α) × the number of powder material feeds.
[0024]
Next, the weight Ws of the molded object X is the material specific gravity × Σ (the irradiation area of the nth layer light beam × the thickness of the stack).
Ask from.
[0025]
Then, the amount (weight) Wr of the surplus powder material Y is obtained by subtracting the weight Ws from the used weight Wp.
[0026]
Next, specific gravity of material × (volume of sintered layer (= Σ (irradiation area of n-th layer light beam × stacking thickness)) − volume after removal of powder material (= volume of CAD model shape)
From this, the weight of the non-reusable sintered product (including chips) and the lump of the powder material is obtained, and the weight of the reusable powder material is obtained by subtracting this weight from the weight Wr.
[0027]
The sales management server 9 accumulates and saves the used amount Ws and the weight of the usable powder material for each processor in the storage device DB2, and calculates the material price corresponding to the used amount Ws from the material unit price. The accumulated material price is stored in a storage device.
[0028]
Now, the molded product is manufactured several times in the manufacturing apparatus 1 of the processor A, the cumulative usage amount stored in the storage device DB2 exceeds a predetermined amount, and the powder material K is newly delivered to the processor A. When the server 1 for sales management determines that it is necessary, processing for instructing the processing company A to deliver the powder material and instructing the recovery of the surplus powder material Y, and the price corresponding to the cumulative weight of the reusable powder material Then, a discount fee is calculated from the price at a predetermined multiplier, and a billing process and a bill issuing process are performed in which an amount obtained by subtracting the discount charge from the accumulated price is charged as a delivery price (step S4).
[0029]
When an instruction is issued from the sales management server 9 in this step S4, the sales person delivers the powder material to be replenished to the processor A, and performs a process of delivering the issued invoice to the processor A. In addition, the surplus powder material Y is picked up at the time of delivery, and the powder material that can be used by the seller is collected separately and reused.
[0030]
(Embodiment 2)
In the first embodiment, the sales management server 9 calculates the amount of powder material to be used and the amount of surplus powder material from the processing data, but in this embodiment, as shown in FIG. A separation device 50 is provided for separating impurities, which are non-reusable components such as lumps and powder materials, from the powder material using a shaker 50a. The reusable powder material Ya separated by the separation device 50, Impurities Yb, which are non-reusable components, such as sintered products (chips) and lumps of powdered material are separated and recovered in separate recovery unit tank 7a and stock unit tank 7b. . Then, the respective amounts are measured by the weight sensors 60a and 60b, and the measurement data is remotely transmitted from the information transmitting / receiving unit 80 to the sales management server 9 under the control of the control unit 8 at the same time as the manufacture of the three-dimensional shaped object X is completed. The data is transferred by access, and the type of material used, the weight of the supplied powder material per powder layer, and the number of times of supply α of the powder material K from the supply unit 5 are extracted from the processed data and transferred to the sales management server 9. Processing is performed. Since other configurations are the same as those of the first embodiment, the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals and description thereof is omitted.
[0031]
Thus, when the sales management server 9 obtains the data as shown in FIG. 5 (step S1), the data of the material specific gravity and the material unit price corresponding to the material type are retrieved from the material database DB1 (step S2). After this search, the usage amount (weight) of the powder material is calculated as in the first embodiment, and the weight of the reusable powder material Ya and the weight of the non-reusable impurity Yb are obtained from the weight measurement data. (Step S3).
[0032]
Then, the sales management server 9 subtracts the weight of the reusable powder material and the weight of the non-reusable impurity Yb from the weight of the used material, so that the actual powder material used in the three-dimensional shaped object X is obtained. The weight of K is obtained, and the weight value is accumulated and stored in the storage device DB2 for each processor, and the material price corresponding to the actual usage is calculated from the material unit price, and the calculated material price is accumulated and stored in the storage device DB2. To do.
[0033]
Now, the modeled object is manufactured several times in the manufacturing apparatus 1 of the processor A, the accumulated actual usage amount stored in the storage device DB2 exceeds a predetermined amount, and the powder material is newly delivered to the processor A. If the server 1 for sales management determines that it is necessary, processing for instructing the delivery of the powder material to the processor A, billing processing using the accumulated actual usage amount as the delivery price, and billing processing are performed. (Step S4).
[0034]
When an instruction is issued from the sales management server 9 in this step S4, the sales person delivers the powder material K to be replenished to the processor A and performs a process of passing the issued bill to the processor A.
[0035]
On the other hand, the processor A returns the reusable powder material Ya separated and collected to the supply unit 5 for reuse.
(Embodiment 3)
In the first and second embodiments, the material powder K is supplied to the manufacturing apparatus 1 by feeding it into a hopper (not shown) provided in the supply unit 5, but the supply unit 5 of this embodiment is shown in FIG. The cartridge 100 filled with a certain amount of material powder K is dropped from the loading groove 101a of the cartridge stocker 101 and loaded, and the lowermost cartridge 100 is a stopper (not shown) at the lower end opening of the mounting groove 101a. Is driven into the cartridge holder 102 which has moved to the cartridge mounting portion 101b below the lower end opening. Then, the conveyance device 104 of the cartridge holder 102 is driven under the control of the control unit 8, the cartridge holder 102 is moved to the powder supply portion 103 of the manufacturing apparatus 1, and then the bottom surface of the cartridge holder 102 is started at the start of manufacturing the shaped article X. A predetermined amount of the powder material K is supplied to the manufacturing apparatus 1 by opening a shutter (not shown) that closes the powder material discharge hole (not shown) provided in the control unit 8 under the control of the control unit 8. Yes. When a photoelectric sensor (not shown) provided on the cartridge holder 102 side detects that the powder material K is not discharged from the cartridge 102, the control unit 8 controls the conveying device 104 in response to this detection, and the cartridge holder After the cartridge 102 is moved into the cartridge mounting portion 102b of the cartridge stocker 101, the cartridge 100 in the cartridge holder 102 is recovered into the cartridge stocker 101 by a recovery mechanism (not shown), and then a stopper ( The cartridge 100 at the lowermost end of the loading groove 101a is loaded into the cartridge holder 102 as described above.
[0036]
In FIG. 6, M is a motor for vibrating the mesh 50a of the sorting device 50 via the endless belt 50b and the drive shaft 50c. Since the other configuration is basically the same as that of the second embodiment, only the main part is illustrated, and the same components as those of the second or first embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals in the illustrated components. Is omitted. Since the processing in the sales management server 9 is the same, the illustration of the information transmitting / receiving unit 80 of the control unit 8 and the sales management server 9 and the explanation of the operation thereof are omitted.
[0037]
In this embodiment, the distributor can manage the amount of the powder material K delivered to the processor A by the number of cartridges, and the processor A can easily load the powder material K into the manufacturing apparatus 1.
[0042]
【The invention's effect】
The invention of the apparatus for producing a three-dimensional shaped article according to claim 1 comprises : a powder layer forming means for forming a layer of an inorganic or organic powder material; and a light beam at a predetermined position of the powder layer based on three-dimensional processing data. In the manufacturing apparatus for a three-dimensional shaped object, the apparatus comprises a three-dimensional shaped object for creating a three-dimensional shaped object by laminating the powder layer at a corresponding location by irradiating Removal means for removing surplus powder material on the surface and / or unnecessary part of the object, means for recovering the removed surplus powder material, and sending the processed data to the outside as data for managing the amount of powder material used And an information transmitting means for separating the surplus powder material removed by the removing means into a non-reusable component and a reusable powder material, and a separated reusable powder Recover materials That the recovery unit, since comprises a classification unit that is configured in a stock unit for stocking the components of the non-reusable, fractional reuse of the recovered excess powder material and also with, yet reusable powder material It is possible to provide a manufacturing apparatus that can automatically collect and is highly convenient.
[0045]
Invention of an apparatus for producing a three-dimensionally shaped object according to claim 2 is the invention of claim 1, the pre-fixed amount filled cartridges of a container of the powder material is mounted, flour powder was drained powder material from cartridges of the container Since the supply means for supplying to the layer forming means is provided, the powder material can be easily loaded into the manufacturing apparatus and the powder material can be easily handled.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a schematic configuration of a manufacturing apparatus used in the above.
FIG. 3 is an operation explanatory diagram of the above.
FIG. 4 is a system configuration diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 5 is an operation explanatory view of the above.
FIG. 6 is a perspective view in which a part of the manufacturing apparatus used in Embodiment 3 of the present invention is omitted.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Manufacturing apparatus 8 Control apparatus 80 Information transmission / reception part 9 Sales management server 90 Information transmission / reception part

Claims (2)

A powder layer forming means for forming a layer of an inorganic or organic powder material, and a predetermined part of the powder layer is irradiated with a light beam based on three-dimensional processing data to sinter the powder layer at the corresponding part, In a manufacturing apparatus for a three-dimensional shaped object provided with a three-dimensional shaped object that creates a three-dimensional shaped object by laminating layers, the surplus powder material on the surface part and / or unnecessary part of the shaped object is removed. A removing means; a means for collecting the removed surplus powder material; and an information sending means for sending the processed data to the outside as data for managing the amount of powder material used, and is removed by the removing means. Stock of unreusable components, a separation unit that separates the surplus powder material into non-reusable components and reusable powder materials, a recovery unit that collects the separated reusable powder materials, respectively To Click portions and apparatus for producing a three-dimensionally shaped object, characterized in that it comprises a classification unit that is configured in. 3. The three-dimensional apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a supply unit that is mounted with a cartridge container filled with a predetermined amount of the powder material, discharges the powder material from the cartridge container, and supplies the powder material to the powder layer forming unit. Manufacturing equipment for shaped objects .

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