This week was a little easier as I have two 3d printers at home :
An ultimaker 2+ (first generation + uppgrade kit) Specifications
A Flux (delta printer/laser engraver/ 3d scanner) Specifications
I'm working mainly with the UM2+ so I will mostly spoke about it for this assignment
As this assignment was focused on 3d printing, I have toyed with my printers who was in desperate need of some care : I have moved recently here and the printers needed some love.
After a good cleaning of the printing surface, some tinkering around the axes and few firmware updates (a flavor of Marlin), I was ready to roll!
I have quickly print a small Marvin Marvin! , the symbol of the 3d printing movement on my two printers as you can see in the images below :
Cura is used as a slicer for the UM2+
You have to place the roll of filament through the feeder
Where the magic happens, the head of the UM2+ with a inox nozzle of 4mm
Control panel with the SD card, you can print with SD card or via USB
All the informations are displayed on the screen and you select and validate your choices via the clickable wheel
You have access to your gcode files and it displays the nozzle size, the time needed for the print and the quantity of filament needed
Family picture! The orange one was made on Up2 +, the white one on the Flux and the black one on the UM2+
I have printed also the torture test made by Make magazine. The overall result is fine for my old printer (early 2014) except the hanging part, too much speed and retraction setting was not good
3D scanning
We have access to a NextEngine 3D scanner Specifications thanks to Denis and his lab, thanks again!
I have tried to scan my little marvin but without success : the .STL produced by the scannner was awful
Marvin facing the scanner
You can select the distance, the precision of the scan, the number of scans, if the object is neutral, dark or light and the resolution
The beginning of the scan was full of promises!
Still going
The final model as seen by the scanner software
And the result as seen by Cura... The detail of the scan and the number of scan was too low and i'm pretty sure it can do better. Sadly, people were waiting for the scan so I will try again latter
Objects who can be made only with 3D printing
I have made two objects in this category : a Double bottle of klein (a 3D representation of a Möbius strip) taken on Thingiverse and something I have designed myself
The beginning of the print for the dual klein bottles
Going well for a first try
It's done!
It's a little fuzzy because of the retractation setting who can be adjusted for this plastic (Blue Grey PLA from Colorfabb). This setting adjust how much and how fast filament is retracted when the head is moving around the print without printing, avoiding a messy print
I have designed this form on fusion 360, using a coil and toying a little with the parameters
Once I have my coil, I have applied a Mirror fonction and the result were both pleasant for the eye (at least for me :p) and extremely difficult to obtain in another way
The result in fusion 360
This object need a lot of support so I have tweaked the density at 5%, making them really easy to remove
Print is going smooth
Done! Just need some support removal
After a quick cleaning
Summary : 3d printing is a very powerfull for a maker (or even industry wide) but at the end, it's exactly what it is : another tool. This is not (yet?) the big revolution with the dream of every home with a 3d replicator Combine with others technics, you can achieve quick and precise prototyping, even pre-production. But for mass-prodcuction, the very slow speed of this technology is a big stop.
The difficulty to get a correct, exploitable 3D file is real and cannot be under-estimated : as you can see with the result of my scan, It's need a lot of time and efforts to get something you can quicky and reliably used.
In short, this is a great tool but just a tool with limitation and should not be the answer to everything
