Electro-photographic 3-D printing using collapsible substrate

摘要

In 3-D printing a platen moves toward an intermediate transfer belt (ITB) to have a sheet positioned on the platen contact the ITB to electrostatically transfer a layer of different materials to the sheet, and then the platen moves to a stabilization station to join the layer to the sheet. This processing is repeated to have the sheet repeatedly contact the ITB (with intervening stabilization at the stabilization station) to successively form layers of the materials on the sheet. The freestanding stack is fed to a platform to successively form a 3-D structure of freestanding stacks of the layers. Heat and/or pressure and/or light are applied to the 3-D structure to bond the freestanding stacks to one another through the sheets of collapsible media on the platform.