3D Printing and Sacnning

In this page there is a link for the week 5 group assigment which is on 3D printing and scanning. The purpose was to test the design rules for the 3D printers we have. I have made a dsign rules for printer in the lab.
Group assigment
Individual Assignment

Design and 3D print an object (small, few cm3, limited by printer time) that could not be easily made subtractively

Matrix Lattice Design and 3D Printing Using FreeCAD

In this section, I present how I used FreeCAD to design a customizable lattice matrix structure suitable for 3D printing. The aim was to explore how to make object that is not easy to make subtractively.

I began the design process in FreeCAD by selecting the Part Design Workbench. Here’s the step-by-step breakdown:

• Step 1: Create a New Body and Sketch
  - Click Create New and select the Part Design workbench.
  - Create a new body and then a new sketch on the XY plane.
  - I drew a simple "L" using polyline tool which served as the unit cell of the lattice. This shape was fully constrained using dimension and symmetry tools.



• Step 2: Pad the Sketch into 3D
  - I used the Extrude tool to extrude the sketch to a desired thickness (e.g., 5 mm), transforming the 2D shape into a 3D object.
  
  -Created a new sketch on the face of the "L".
  -And made a square at the corner of the "L" to extrude into 3-point "L" using geometry tool and created the square at the corner of "L".
  -Then extruded into 3 point "L".
  - This became the base unit of my lattice matrix.
  - Then joined using Part>Boolean>Union tool.






• Step 3: Create a Lattice with Array Tool
  - I switched to the Lattice Workbench and selected the Array tool.
  - I created a Linear Array to make direction of the copies (5) and the spacing between them (e.g., 20 mm).
  - This produced a repeating matrix of the L unit. -The step repeated for both "L" shapes. -The hole lattice joined using Boolean>Union tool.








• Step 4: Adding a cylinder
  I have adde a cylinder form the shapes with radius: 40mm, height: 100mm.
  I moved the cylinder to the middle of the lattice using tranform tool, this is going to be used to shape the lattice.
  I joined them using Boolean>Union tool,
  -Then shape made using Part>Boolean>Inetrsection tool.





• Step 5: Adding a base
  I have created sketch on the bottom plane .
  Created polygone shape and extruded.
  I joined them using Boolean>Union tool,
  -Then shape made using Part>Boolean>Inetrsection tool.




• Step 6: Adding cone
  I have adde a cone form the shapes with radius: 1mm, Second radius: 40mm. I moved the cone on top of the lattice using tranform tool, this is going to be used to shape the lattice.
  I joined them using Boolean>Union tool.



Front view.


Exporting the Model for 3D Printing
Once the design was finalized, I exported it as an STL file for 3D printing:

• Select the body or object in the model tree
• Go to File > Export
• Select STL Mesh (*.stl) and save it to a directory

Slicing the STL for 3D Printing
I imported the STL file into Creality Print software to prepare it for 3D printing.




• Imported the STL file into the slicer workspace
• Used the Scale tool to resize the model to fit the print bed.
• Used Move and Rotate tools to position the object flat on the print surface
• Clicked Slice to generate G-code
• The G-code save and ready for 3D print.




3D Printing
I inserted the SD card into the 3D printer (Creality printer) and selected the file to begin printing. Here’s how the process went:

• The printer performed a preheat cycle for PLA filament.
• I used white PLA filament for the print
• The printer started at low speed, so I increased the speed via the printer menu to reduce print time.
Innitial printing settings on the printer.



Starting printing

The print progress.


The final product came out clean and matched the design.



3D Scanning
Although my primary focus was design and printing, I explored 3D scanning using a Creality scanner to reverse-engineer a part and compare it with the lattice geometry.