5.3D Scanning and Printing
Assignments
group assignment:
- test the design rules for your 3D printer(s)
individual assignment:
- design and 3D print an object (small, few cm3, limited by printer time)
- that could not be made subtractive
- 3D scan an object (and optionally print it)
Research
Throughout The Week
Group Work
For my group project I found the ovehang angle and bridgeing length of the Prusa Mini +
3D printing
Gear System
I wanted to start this week out by working on my final project. So I wanted to make a system where the gear will be turned by a servo and that will push a poll up and down. To do this I first though about what size I wanted for it to be and went with a 2" gear and a 3" pole. I started designing by making to circles in a sketch so that I could get all the sizing right and have a space in the middle for the servo to connect too.
Once I had that I decided to design the teeth of the gear using parameters so that if I need to change the size of the teeth later on it will be easy. Then I just extruded the whole thing up.
After making the basic gear I made a sketch on the top and made an area for me to insert the servo into the gear with a little extra space so that I can change the servo if necessary.
Next after I finished the gear I had to make the pole, so I started by making a line and a circle on a different plane and then sweeping the circle across the line.
Once I was done with that I used paramiters to design blocks in the pole for the teeth of the gear to go into so that it can move it up and down.
Lastly once I was completely done I animated it so that you can see what the final product will look like.
Then I sent it into Prusa slicer and selected the setting I wanted which. These settings included:
- .2 mm layer height
- first layer height of .15 mm
- infill as cubic pattern and made it 20%.
- I used paint on supports that I put on the design
- I used Prusa filiment
- and for printer printed on the
Original Prusa mini/mini+
next I exported it as G-Code and printed it here is a picture of my final gear.
Once I was done with printing I hot-glued a screw into the gear and screwed it into a servo motor just so that I could test out my design to see if it works. I uploaded the first servo code in 'week-4 embedded programming' that I made and here is the result.
Keychain
Becuase the requirments for this week said I must print something that cant be made through subtractive machining so I made this keychain that interlocks with eachother in 1 print so that it could not be able to be made with subtractive mesures. This can not be made thorugh subtractive mesures becuase of the fact that it interlocks with eachother and you can not cut that using subtractive mesures.
after making it I sent it to prusa slicer.
For the settings of the print I used:
- .2 mm layer height
- first layer height of .2 mm
- infill as grid pattern and made it 20%.
- I used paint on supports that I put on the design
- I used Prusa filiment
- and for printer printed on the
Original Prusa mini/mini+Then I used pain on supports to select where I wanted to put supports as seen below.
Once I was done designing I put the G-code file onto a USB stick and plugged it into my prusa mini +. Then I hit print.
and here was the final result once I took the supports off
Its a little rough moving becuase its small so if you want to print it I would suggest making it a little bigger because it was a pain getting all the supports out so that it could move even a little.
Block
This week I also decided to 3D print my blocks or at least 3 of them to test them. I imported a DXF file from Corel of my clock and base the sizing of the digit to get it to the right size. Then after designing I started printing it. I tried it with an infill of 25% and a cubic infill pattern, becuase that will make it take the least amount of time with decently stength.
Once I was done designing I sent them over to prusa slicer and used the same settings as the chain to print them. I then Printed the blocks. They fit perfectly in the spots in my model, so They are the final design for the blocks here is how they turned out.
3D Scanning
For scanning I used an app on my phone called PolyCam. It has two ways of 3D scanning one is LIDAR scanning. LIDAR is a method of remote sensing that uses lasers to measure distances to a target. The term "LIDAR" stands for Light Detection and Ranging. Below is an image of my Lidar scan
For this scan I had to go around the object as my phone used LIDAR to see how light reflected off of the object to make a 3d render of it.
And the other way it can 3D scan is by taking many photos and putting them together to create a mesh of a 3d object. Below is an image of the photo scan.
As you can see the LiDAR scanning has just a little more detail than the photo scan and will let me have a more full and detailed file to 3D print. I believe LIDAR works better when there are more reflections because the photos would mess up a lot where they where.
Below you can see both files in Prusa slicer, and you can see how the Lidar file is more defined and has more crystals shown then the photo scan.
Becuase the LiDAR scan had much more details I decided to 3D print that one to compare it to the original object.
After printing it out here is the 3d print next to the scan print.
Summary
This week I learned how to the prusa mini + 3D printer and from this I got a final design for my gears and the blocks so that I can start building my prototype of my final project. It was really useful and I got to go really indepth learning all of prusa slicers advanced fetures letting me get better prints.
Files
Gear STL Download
Gear and keychain g-code Download
Scan Stl files
Block Stl files