CoreXY is a technique used to move the printhead of a
3D printer
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...
or the toolhead in
CNC
Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a p ...
machines in the
horizontal plane
In astronomy, geography, and related sciences and contexts, a '' direction'' or ''plane'' passing by a given point is said to be vertical if it contains the local gravity direction at that point.
Conversely, a direction or plane is said to be hor ...
. The advantage of this technique is that the two motors used to perform the movement in the horizontal plane are stationary and do not have to move themselves, which can result in less moving
mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
. Instead,
drive belts are used which are connected in an intricate way to provide movement in a
Cartesian coordinate system
A Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured in t ...
.
Movement
For movement along the ''X''-axis, both motors must rotate in the same direction. For movement along the ''Y''-axis, the motors must rotate in opposite directions. If only one motor rotates, the movement will be diagonal.
The movement can be mathematically described as follows. If
is the movement of the first motor and
the movement of the second motor, the movement in the ''X'' and ''Y'' directions is given by:
Compared to conventional printers
Other Cartesian 3D printers which do not use the CoreXY technique most commonly also use two motors for the ''XY''-plane, but where one motor is independently responsible for movement along the ''X''-axis, and the other independently responsible for movement along the ''Y''-axis. This is sometimes called a ''Cartesian technique''.
See also
*
Delta robot
A delta robot is a type of parallel robot that consists of three arms connected to universal joints at the base. The key design feature is the use of parallelograms in the arms, which maintains the orientation of the end effector. In contrast, S ...
, a mechanism used in delta 3D printers
References
{{reflist
Mechanisms (engineering)
3D printing