Patent ID: 6149856
Filing Date: 2000-11-21
Classification: B29C,B29K,B29L,Y10T

Abstract:
A system for curing a plastic three-dimensional solid composite part (110, 112) characterized by:a) an illumination source module (101) which produces a high-powered radiation beam;b) a beam processing module (103) arranged to accept the beam output of said illumination source module (101) and deliver as its output a set of one or more sub-beams, each sub-beam of said set having a pre-determined numerical aperture, having a homogenizer (105) arranged to accept said beam output and forward a shaped, uniformized beam, having condenser means (106) arranged to accept the shaped, uniformized sub-beam output of said homogenizer (105) and to reconfigure the sub-beam output into a set of at least one operational sub-beam of predetermined characteristics;c) a translation stage subsystem (99) for presenting a pattern of photo-curing radiation to different segments of said composite part (110, 112) for photocuring, andd) control means (100) to control said translation stage subsystem to control said beam processing module, to provide a pattern selectively to each one of a plurality of individual segments of said composite part (110, 112).