3D Scanning and Printing

Summary

This week we had to scan a 3d object and the optionally print it also find the tolerances of the 3d printers the lab has. The last task was to create a 3d object that cannot be made subtractively. While test the printers we found out that they don’t have the best resolution but the higher priced printer is about 8 years old so the new technology is a little bit better. The biggest difference between the printers is the Dimension 1200es will print support material and that is needed to make assemblies. The Makergear will not easily make assemblies.

3d scanning

The 3d scanner we have at the college to use was the Go!SCAN 50™ from Creaform.

The table below is for both the go scan 20 and 50 we have the Gocan 50 but it is the previous gen so it will not map the color.

	Go!SCAN 20™	Go!SCAN 50™
WEIGHT	930 g (2.05 lbs.)	950 g (2.1 lbs.)
DIMENSIONS	154 x 178 x 235 mm (6 x 7 x 9.2 in.)	150 x 171 x 251 mm (5.9 x 6.7 x 9.9 in.)
MEASUREMENT RATE	550,000 measurements/s
SCANNING AREA	143 x 108 mm (5.6 in x 4.3 in)	380 x 380 mm (15 in. x 15 in.)
LIGHT SOURCE	White light (LED)
RESOLUTION	0.100 mm (0.004 in.)	0.500 mm (0.020 in.)
ACCURACY	Up to 0.100 mm (0.004 in.)
VOLUMETRIC ACCURACY^*	0.300 mm/m (0.0036 in./ft)
POSITIONING METHODS	Geometry and/or color and/or targets
STAND-OFF DISTANCE	380 mm (15 in.)	400 mm (15.75 in.)
DEPTH-OF-FIELD	100 mm (4 in.)	250 mm (10 in.)
PART SIZE RANGE (RECOMMENDED)	0.05 – 0.5 m (2 – 20 in.)	0.3 – 3.0 m (1 – 10 ft)
TEXTURE RESOLUTION	50 to 250 DPI	50 to 150 DPI
SOFTWARE	VXelements
OUTPUT FORMAT	.dae, .fbx, .ma, .obj, .ply, .stl, .txt, .wrl, .x3d, .x3dz, .zpr
COMPATIBLE SOFTWARE	3D Systems (Geomagic® Solutions), InnovMetric Software (PolyWorks), Dassault Systèmes (CATIA V5 and SolidWorks), PTC (Pro/ENGINEER), Siemens (NX and Solid Edge), Autodesk (Inventor, Alias, 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage).
CONNECTION STANDARD	1 x USB 2.0
OPERATING TEMPERATURE RANGE	5-40 °C (41-104 °F)
OPERATING HUMIDITY RANGE (NON-CONDENSING)	10-90%

The first thing to be able to scan with this system is you need to prep the item with reflective dots for references.

After the item was prepped the scanner was hook up via usb and the software was started. VXeleamints is the scanners software it has a blank screen and when the button of the scanner is pressed the software registers the item. When scanning you need to rotate and scan all side, the dots help for referencing when the item is moved. When every part is scanned and the model in the computer looks complete and has very little to no holes the scanning operation is complete and then you can go to the next step of clean up.

The picture above is the model generated with a lot artifacts. The next step is to clean the model up with the tools in the software. There is a tool that you can highlight items you do not want and delete them. You can also select the main item and inverse to get rid of the artifacts.

3d2

After the cleanup there was a thin handle on the milk bottle that I scanned and it did not full come out so I got rid of that piece.

3d3

After all of that you have the fill any holes that were left in the model this program has a built in heal button that will do its best job to fill the holes. In this case I had very few holes and they were small so the program worked very well but it does not always do that some manual filling may be needed.

3d4

After all the holes are filled like the one in the picture above and the object looks good it usually has too many triangles to import into soildworks or other programs so you need to decimate the object to reduce the number of triangles. In this software there is a button to decimate and it has a few options one is how many is the max number of triangles and it also show how many there are at this time. In this case I forced it to be around 18 thousand.

3d5

After all the work you can export the file as a stl so you can import it into a 3d printer software and print it. I printed my scanned object but at a very small scale.

3dmilk

Week 5 3d scan Bottle by crohal on Sketchfab

Printer tolerances

In the fab lab at LCCC we have two 3d printers one is a MakerGear M2 the other is a Stratasys Dimension 1200es. Below is what we have come up with for the tolerances of each machine.

MakrerGear:

Can print up to 55 degrees without support material.
The minimum wall thickness that was printed was 0.03 inches. Can it print at 0.02?
Does not require an island of support material when the print begins if the bottom is flat and substantial.
Not good with assemblies. The support material can't be broken away successfully for internal parts.
Wall thickness of .05 inches measures 0.48 to 0.49 inches.
A box that was printed 2.75 x .75 x .5 inches shows no substantial shrinkage of material.
Cylinders should be printed vertically because the resolution is better. The resolution of this printer is better than the Dimensions printer

Dimension 1200es:

Can print up to 45 degrees without support material.
The minimum wall thickness printed is 0.04 inches (1mm). This is recommended by the vendor.
Always lays down an island of support material when the print begins, even if the bottom of the part is flat.
Good with working assemblies. The support material is dissolvable if the clearance is kept a minimum of .02 inches (.5mm) from mating parts.
Wall thickness of .05 inches measures 0.051 to 0.050 inches.
A box that was printed 2.75 x .75 x .5 inches shows no substantial shrinkage of material.
Cylinders should be printed vertically because the resolution is much better. There are "steps" in the surface when printed horizontally.
Layer thickness is .01 inch

Below is the test part that a former Fab Academy student made for testing tolerances. Both machine did ok but the parts that were supposed to be moveable were not.

MakerGear M2

Dimension 1200es

3d Printed part

For my 3d printed part that cannot be made subtractively I decided to make a cube with holes on each face and then put it inside of a sphere that has two squares cut out that are smaller than the cube inside. I used Autodesk Fusion 360 to make the object and then printed it out on the Dimension 1200es using the catalyst software. In the below screen shots for the printer software I used the bottle that I scanned for the step thru but the process is the same for the sphere I created.