A Research Into The Control System Of The Fused Deposition Modeling System

In the present field of Rapid Prototyping, the "New RP Technology" based on jetting technology is replacing the "Conventional RP Technology" based on laser technology as the mainstream of the Rapid Prototyping Technology. Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is the most popular Rapid Prototyping technology based on jetting technology.This paper mainly does research on the control system of FDM system. At first, the control system based on personal computer and current cards was discussed. Then a new control system was put forward. The new control system uses a industrial personal computer and a programmable logic controller to realize the control function of the system. The industrial personal computer completes the data processing mission and generates instructions which can be recognised by programmable logic controller. The programmable logic controller inplementes the instructions and complete the control mission. The communication between industrial personal computer and programmable logic controller should be based on the FDM Serial Port Communication Protocol. This paper called the new control system as "control system based on PC and PLC" due to its structure of the system. The paper discussed the capability and feasibility of the control system, and designed the hardware and software of it. Finally, the paper researched the communication between industrial personal computer and programmable logic controller in the new FDM system, and designed the communication mode and the FDM Serial Port Communication Protocol.Another most important characteristic of the new control system is using normative numeric control processing program as the data interfaces. In the new control system, the software is separated to FDM data processing software and numeric control software. The FDM data processing software translates the STL file offered by customers into numeric control processing program, then numeric control software gets the program and execute it. This paper discussed this characteristic of the system detailedly. At first, the paper defined the repertoire and the format of the numeric control processing program, and illustrated the programming of the numeric control FDM device. Then, the paper did research on several processing technology of the FDM system, and presented the arithmetic. Subsequently, the paper detailedly researched the principle and process of the NC program autocoding of the FDM system, and the input, encoding, pretreatment and interpolation of the numeric control processing program.