A method for printing a three-dimensional part with an additive manufacturing system, which includes providing a part material that compositionally has one or more semi-crystalline polymers and one or more secondary materials that are configured to retard crystallization of the one or more semi-crystalline polymers, where the one or more secondary materials are substantially miscible with the one or more semi-crystalline polymers. The method also includes melting the part material in the additive manufacturing system, forming at least a portion of a layer of the three-dimensional part from the melted part material in a build environment, and maintaining the build environment at an annealing temperature that is between a glass transition temperature of the part material and a cold crystallization temperature of the part material.

3-D printers include a transfuse station having at least one roller on one side of the ITB supporting the ITB, and a transmission device on the same side of the ITB. A platen is included that moves relative to the ITB. The ITB electrostatically transfers a layer made up of the different color build materials and the support material to the platen each time the platen contacts the other side of the ITB at the transfuse station (the side of the ITB opposite the transfuse station roller and transmission device) using vibration and charge devices; and this successively forms multiple layers of the build materials and the support material on the platen.

Occurrence of layering defects is suppressed in a layering forming method where material layers on a conveyance member are heated and layered. A forming apparatus 1 configured to sequentially layer a plurality of material layers and form a three-dimensional object includes a stage having a forming face on which the material layers are layered, a conveyance member configured to support and convey the material layers to a layering position facing the forming face, and a heating member configured to nip the material layers between itself and the forming face of the stage at the layering position, and pressurize and heat the material layer. When a heating region of the heating member is perpendicularly projected onto a plane where a supporting face at which the conveyance member supports the material layer exists, a projection plane of the heating region has extending regions that extend further to the outer side from both edges of the supporting face, on both edges of the projection plane of the heating region.

3-D printers include a transfuse station having at least one roller on one side of an ITB supporting the ITB, and a transmission device on the same side of the ITB. A charge neutralizer is included on a second side of the intermediate transfer surface. The charge neutralizer outputs an opposite charge to neutralize existing static charge on a layer of the build material and the support material on the ITB, before the layer reaches the transfer station. Additionally, the intermediate transfer surface transfers the layer to a platen each time the platen contacts the second side of the intermediate transfer surface, at the transfer station, to successively form layers of the build material and the support material on the platen. Also, the transmission device outputs acoustic waves to cause the layer to move from the intermediate transfer surface to the platen, or to the layers on the platen.

Layers of build and support material on an intermediate transfer surface are moved past a transfuse station and a platen moves relative to the intermediate transfer surface to contact the platen to one of the layers on the intermediate transfer surface. The intermediate transfer surface transfers a layer of the build material and the support material to the platen each time the platen contacts the layers on the intermediate transfer surface at the transfuse station to successively form a freestanding stack of the layers of build and support material on the platen. The build material has a higher melting temperature than the support material. A support material removal station heats the stack to a temperature above the melting temperature of the support material, but below the melting temperature of the build material, to melt the support material, but leave a 3-D structure made of only the build material.

A method for printing a three-dimensional part with an additive manufacturing system, which includes providing a part material that compositionally has one or more semi-crystalline polymers and one or more secondary materials that are configured to retard crystallization of the one or more semi-crystalline polymers, where the one or more secondary materials are substantially miscible with the one or more semi-crystalline polymers. The method also includes melting the part material in the additive manufacturing system, forming at least a portion of a layer of the three-dimensional part from the melted part material in a build environment, and maintaining the build environment at an annealing temperature that is between a glass transition temperature of the part material and a cold crystallization temperature of the part material.

An additive manufacturing method produces a 3D part utilizes electrophotography-based additive manufacturing and molding processes. A layered structure having a cavity is printed on a build platform using at least one electrophotographic (EP) engine to develop imaged layers of powder material, and a transfusion assembly to stack and fuse the imaged layers on the build platform. Molding material is deposited into the cavity as the layered structure is printed, using a deposition unit. The molding material solidifies to form at least a portion of the 3D part, which may also include portions formed from imaged powder material.

A system and method are provided for implementing a unique electrophotographic layered manufacturing scheme for creating higher fidelity electrophotographic composite laminate layers using tri-level electrophotography or electrostatic imaging scheme as a process for rendering individual laminate layers to be built up to form and/or manufacture three-dimensional objects, parts and components as 3D objects. A multi-stage 3D object forming scheme is described involving steps of multi-component laminate forming in a particularized electrophotographic layer forming process. This process renders a part component and a support component precisely next to one another with a single exposure by an exposing device to form a latent image of variable discharge voltages. Multiple toner product sources are used to dispose part component toner and support component toner in the forming of the multi-component laminate layer.

A power regulation circuit including an input from an alternating current (AC) power supply, a load element connected to the AC power supply input, a dummy power resistor connected in parallel with the load element, and a controller to dynamically control power to the load element and to the dummy power resistor in response to a variation in the power consumption of the load element.

A molding system to manufacture a three-dimensional object corresponding to a three-dimensional model. The molding apparatus includes a slice data generation unit to generate slice data from three-dimensional shape data of the three-dimensional model, and a lamination unit to laminate a layer of a molding material on the basis of the slice data. The slice data generation unit analyzes data, and, if a region in which a layer of a second molding material different from a first molding material is to be laminated on a layer of the first molding material and in which it is difficult to laminate the layers is extracted, modifies the data of a region of at least one of an ith layer and an (i+1)th layer to data in which a portion in which the first molding material is disposed and a portion in which the second molding material is disposed.