• Bluewing@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    What I find interesting here is that’s a pretty small award. Barely as slap on the fingers. But it does throw the fear of god into other manufacturers.

  • papalonian@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    The article mentions four patents:

    9,168,698 / 10,556,381 - Force detection on the printhead, ie when your printer homes the z-axis by touching the nozzle against the build plate (would not include conductive or magnetic sensors)

    9,421,713 - Using purge towers in prints with multiple filaments or extruders

    7,555,357 - Not really sure exactly what this describes, so here is the patent’s abstract:

    A method of forming a three-dimensional object using an extrusion-based layered deposition system, the method comprising generating a build path for building a layer of the three-dimensional object, where the build path defines a void region. The method further comprising generating at least one intermediate path in the void region, and generating a remnant path based at least in part on the at least one intermediate path.

    Seems to include slicing objects that are not completely solid on the surface (ie a cube with a hole through the center).

    So, with this precedent, Stratasys can go after… nearly every printer on the market. Cool

    • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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      19 hours ago

      Looking it up from some different sources I could find the following listed as summaries of the patents:

      Multi-axis motion systems
      Heated bed management
      Enclosed chamber thermal control
      Filament flow monitoring
      Error detection software

      Those first two are basically every printer sold for the last 6 or 7 years? Seems weird they let Creality (and everyone else) do their thing for years without issue and just decided to go after Bambu. I am not a Bambu fan by any stretch, but still doesn’t seem to add up.

      • AliasVortex@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        If I had to bet it has more to do with Bambu making a boat load more money than other manufacturers. I’d imagine that Bambu is also popular/ reliable enough to start cutting into Stratasys’ enterprise market.

    • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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      19 hours ago

      Yea, it also has basically no info. Even if it was written by a person, they should feel bad if they got paid for this.