Current commercial Rapid Prototyping (RP) systems like Stereolithography (3D
Systems Corporation) and Selective Laser Sintering (DTM Corporation) use
galvanometers from General Scanning Inc. (GSI) for the positioning of the laser beam.
The GSI scanners are delivered as a ''black box". Operating Consoles which are usually
Personal Computers (PC) have very few feedback from the performance of the GSI
scanners. Therefore, the PC spends 9000 or more of its time waiting for the GSI scanners
to be over with the building of the current layer before sending the information
regarding the next layer. Also, very little process control can be performed during the
scanning of a layer using the GSI scanners. This kind of setup prevents any dynamic
controlling of the process that could prevent building errors like burning, warping etc.
At Clemson University, our team has developed both hardware and software
components that allows a dynamic control of the building process. New features like
scanning one vector with laser power as a function of position and/or time are now
possible. Both hardware and software issues will be presented.Mechanical Engineerin
