Investigation of a linear 2-D planar motor based rapid tooling system

Rapid prototyping (RP) has been widely known as being able to fabricate 3-D objects with complex geometric shapes. Rapid tooling has become more important because of the requirement of rapid manufacture. Rapid tooling can be used to produce a temporary mold, even a permanent mold in mass production. The objective of the paper is to develop a rapid tooling system. The software technique includes a slicing algorithm and tool path generation algorithm. The hardware architecture includes a 500 W Nd:YAG laser, metallic powder feeder, substrate preheat system, shielding gas (N₂) supply system, CNC milling system and linear planar motor based working table. The system controller is a PC-based control system which includes 4-axis DSP motion control and an I/O control card. The system control software is written in Visual Basic language. The experimental result shows that the linear 2-D planar motor based X-Y table has fast response and can make an accurate tool path.