Week 5. 3D Scanning and Printing

Hero Shot

This week I learned regarding different types of 3D printers and explored the additive manufacturing and why it is different from subtractive manufacturing. In addition to that I also learned advantages and limitations of 3D printers. In group we explored different 3D printers and checked their design rules.

Group Assignment

• Test the design rules for your 3D printers

Link to the group assignment is here

Key takeaways from this week:

• what I had learned from group assignment is that prusa mk3S 3d printers can print upto 50 degree without any support and from 60 degree we require support. But bambu printer can print without support till 75 degree.

• Since the prusa has got smaller extruder diameter(0.2mm) it can print small texts with details and on the other hand bambu printer having extruder diameter(0.4mm) can’t print smaller texts in detail.

• Prusa mk3S printer can print upto 20 mm bridge height without any support.

Individual Assignment

• Design and 3D print an object which can’t be made by subtractive method

• Use any 3D scanning devices, scan the object and if possible print it.

3D printers

What is 3D printers?

A 3D printer is a machine that creates three-dimensional objects by adding material layer by layer based on a digital design. This process is called additive manufacturing and allows for the creation of complex shapes that would be difficult or impossible to make with traditional manufacturing methods.

These are the types of 3D printing filaments;

Types of 3D Printing Technologies:

• FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling): Melts and extrudes plastic filament to build objects layer by layer.

• SLA (Stereolithography): Uses a laser to cure liquid resin into solid layers.

• SLS (Selective Laser Sintering): Uses a laser to fuse powdered material, like nylon or metal.

• DLP (Digital Light Processing): Similar to SLA but uses a digital projector instead of a laser.

• Metal 3D Printing (SLM, DMLS): Uses high-powered lasers to fuse metal powder for industrial applications.

Disclaimer: The definition has been abstracted from ChatGpt for the reference purpose

Why Additive manufacturing is better than Subtractive manufacturing?

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a process where objects are built layer by layer by adding material based on a digital 3D model. This method is commonly known as 3D printing and allows for complex, lightweight designs with minimal waste.

Additive manufacturing is considered better than Subtractive manufacturing because in Additive manufacturing:

• Less waste will be generated

• It is user friendly, any one can operate no need to be technically sounded

• Can create complex and intricate designs that are hard to produce with CNC machines

• More cost-effective for small batches and prototyping

Disclaimer: The description above has been obtained from ChatGpt for reference purpose

Advantages and Limitations of 3D printers

Despite of having so many advantages of 3D printer,It do have limitations that are:

• Not efficient for mass production

• Post processing required

• Size limitations

• Structural Weakness

3D Printing

Design Procedure

I made my design using Fusion 360 as I am very much comfortable to work with it. I decided to make one simple bracelet, after watching through this tutorial which can be worn in hand by any one.

After opening fusion 360;

• Click on “Create Sketch” from the toolbar.

• Select any plane, select circle tool and create circle with a 100mm diameter.

• Draw center point slot on the circle by selecting XZ plane

• I kept slot height as 20mm and width as 5mm

• Try to create sweep on the circle so for that click on Create > Sweep

• Select the profile and select the path and set the twist angle to 180

• Click on to Create > Sphere and create sphere of 18 mm diameter after selecting the XZ plane

• Select the sphere and move it to a distance of 50 mm and while doing that, sphere will be firmly placed on the previously sweep body.

• Go to Create > pattern > circular pattern from the drop downlist

• Select the object and the axis on which you want to create the circular pattern

• Give the numbers of sphere you want to create on the body

• Go on to tool bar and click Modify > Combine > Select tool bodies enabling the cutting operation in dialog box.

• Select on the Target bodies and Tool bodies to execute the combine operation. As we had enabled cut operation hole will be created on the body.

• On the toolbar click on Modify > Move/copy and select on the body

• Select Set pivot on the dialog box which appears on the right hand side after clicking on Move/Copy option > Select new pivot location > create copy and rotate body to 180 degree.

• Finally I finished designing my bracelet and I added Appearance on it to look fancy and colourful.

• Next I exported the STL file of my design and saved it in desktop so that I can print it using 3D printer

• After that I opened the Bambu Studio and added my design in it

*For the appropriate way of slicing and to include necessary details I had gone through this Tutorial

After that I clicked on variable layer height and then reduced the layer height to 0.1 because layer height is reduced to improve the surface smoothing of our 3d printed object. Next I clicked on adaptive.

I clicked on strength and checked the walls and infill value. I didn’t change the wall and infill value. I kept wall as 2 and infill as 15 which was by default.

After slicing the plate, in colour scheme panel I changed the line type to layer height

I zommed in my sliced view and checked whether there is problem or not but I found out that, my design would be printed without any support because what I had learned from group assignment is that bambu printer can print without support till 75 degree.

Finally I clicked on print plate after selecting the printer and printing was started. The material that I used for printing was silk rainbow PLA filament and its print temperature ranges from 190 - 220 degtree celcius.

3D scanning device

KIRI ENGINE

KIRI Engine is a free 3D scanning app for iOS and Android, developed by Kiri Innovation, a Canadian company that specializes in photogrammetry, and powered by a state-of-the-art photogrammetry algorithm.

Disclaimer: The definition has been copied from google for the reference purpose

For 3D scanning a object I explored on KIRI ENGINE which I downloaded in my phone and used it for scanning a object. Eventhough there are lots of other devices or apps by which we can do 3D scanning but I found KIRI ENGINE to be user friendly and also with lots of features comparing to other devices or apps so I decided to use it.

Steps to follow for 3D scanning using KIRI ENGINE

• Download the app from playstore and install it in your phone(apple/andriod)

• Set up your object on the table or anywhere in the height so that you can easily capture all the details of the object with ease.

• After that try to either video record or capture image using the app for 3D scanning.

• Once we are done recording the video, we need to upload it by selecting some of the formats for our design.

       *The image shows process of uploading*

• Once the video gets uploaded it will take few minutes of processing our project so we can either close the app or start another project.

• After that you can again open back the app, select your project and then download your final design.

• This is how my design looked like after downloading it.

• Lastly we can export our design and send it into our gmail account so that we can download and print it.

• After we had send our design, we can open our account and download the design file.

• I downloaded the design file and opened it using bambu studio and it looked like this

Files for the week

• Bracelet design file

• 3D scanned file

This week It was really interesting and at the same time challenging one because for 3D printing I was required to print again and again. And for 3D scanning to use KIRI ENGINE was really a nice experience.

Thank you have a nice day