An ultrafine fiber printing system contains a moving deck having a nozzle seat that disposed on the moving deck. A pipe is installed in the nozzle seat and a nozzle is disposed at the bottom end of the pipe. The upper portion and the lower portion of the pipe are combined with a heat dissipating unit and heater respectively. The top end of the pipe is connected to a feed tube having an outer end being connected with a thread squeezer. A printing platform is disposed around the moving deck. The nozzle is connected to a static electricity supply and the fiber carrier is grounded. An electric field is formed between the nozzle and the fiber carrier. The droplets exported from the nozzle are stretched into ultrafine fibers to form a patterned fabric or product.

A nozzle assembly for an injection molding system has a nozzle adapter with one or more vent holes therein. A porous metal insert is provided in fluid communication with at least one of the vent holes. The porous metal insert is also in fluid communication with a flow channel through the nozzle assembly. As molten polymeric material advances through the flow channel from a barrel to a mold assembly, gases entrained in the molten polymeric material are vented through the porous metal insert and escape through the one or more vent holes. Pressurized air may be introduced through the vent holes, such as by one or more blow-back modules, to unclog pores of the one or more porous metal inserts between shots of the injection molding system.

A hot runner injection molding apparatus includes a hot runner nozzle and a first heater coupled to the nozzle body of the nozzle. A separate mold gate insert surrounds a nozzle tip area of the nozzle. The mold gate insert is heated by a second heater that is separate and independent from the nozzle body heater. The temperature generated by the first and second heaters is measured by a first thermocouple and a second thermocouple, respectively. A controller is used to adjust at any time the temperature of the first and second heaters independently. The second heater is used to either i) melt, and thus enable a faster removal of, a colder molten material accumulated around the nozzle tip during a color change procedure or ii) to reduce or increase the temperature of the nozzle tip differently from one nozzle to the next.

An additive manufacturing system has a plurality of manifolds in an extruder. Each manifold is connected to at least one nozzle of the extruder so the at least one nozzle extrudes thermoplastic material through a corresponding aperture in a faceplate mounted to the extruder. A plurality of valves is configured between each manifold and each nozzle connected to the manifold so the nozzles connected to a manifold extrude thermoplastic material from the manifold selectively. The faceplate is also configured for rotation about an axis perpendicular to the faceplate so different orientations of the nozzles and the apertures of the faceplate can be obtained. The different manifolds of the extruder enable a plurality of thermoplastic materials having different properties to be extruded simultaneously so the materials can join to one another while the materials are at an elevated temperature.

In in-process inspection or calibration of a print bed or 3D printed part with a 3D printer, toolpaths defining printing material shells for deposition by a 3D printer are compared to surface profile scans from a range scanner to identify differences between the print bed, instructed deposition and the measured result, permitting pausing or alteration of the toolpaths or printing process.

Methods of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament which, in various embodiments, comprise: (A) grinding recycled PET bottles into a group of flakes; (B) washing the flakes; (C) identifying and removing impurities, including impure flakes, from the group of flakes; (D) adding one or more color concentrates to the flakes; (E) passing the group of flakes through an MRS extruder (400) while maintaining the pressure within the MRS portion (420) of the MRS extruder (400) below about 25 millibars; (F) passing the resulting polymer melt through at least one filter (450) having a micron rating of less than about 50 microns; and (G) forming the recycled polymer into bulked continuous carpet filament that consists essentially of recycled PET.

A method for manufacturing pellets from polymer, comprising: (1) melting polymer flakes in a first section of a melt processing unit to create a first single stream of polymer melt; (2) separating the first single stream of polymer melt into multiple streams of polymer melt by means of a separation element; (3) passing the multiple streams through a multiple stream section of said melt processing unit and exposing the multiple streams to a pressure within the multiple stream section of the melt processing unit as the multiple streams pass through the multiple stream section; (4) recombining the multiple streams into at least one combined stream of polymer melt; and (5) cooling the polymer melt and forming said pellets from the at least one combined stream. The intrinsic viscosity of the at least one combined stream may be determined and, in response, the chamber pressure within the multiple stream section adjusted.

A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament from recycled polymer. In various embodiments, the method includes: (1) reducing recycled polymer material into polymer flakes; (2) cleansing the polymer flakes; (3) melting the flakes into a polymer melt; (4) removing water and contaminants from the polymer melt by dividing the polymer melt into a plurality of polymer streams and exposing those streams to pressures below 25 millibars or another predetermined pressure; (5) recombining the streams; and (6) using the resulting purified polymer to produce bulked continuous carpet filament.

An extruder system that includes an extruder apparatus for melting regolith to create a molten regolith. The extruder apparatus includes a chamber for receiving the regolith and an auger disposed in the chamger for forcing the regolight through the chamber. The extruder apparatus also includes copper wiring coiled around the chamber to create an induction field in the chamber to melt the regolith when alternating current is passed through the copper wiring. A method of generating molten regolith via electrical induction includes feeding regolith to the extruder apparatus and heating the regolith in the extruder apparatus via electrical induction to create a molten regolith. The method also includes extruding the molten regolith from the extruder apparatus.

A wire drawing process of a light storage wire includes a feeding step, a mixing step, a first drying step, a hot melt extrusion step, a first cooling step, a shaping/organizing wire step, a hot-temperature remodeling step, a stretching step, a second cooling step, a strand winding/rolling step, and a second drying step.