Week 5

Assignment - 3D Printing and Scanning

  • Group assignment:
    • Test the design rules for your 3D printer(s)
    • Document your work on the group work page and reflect on your individual page what you learned about characteristics of your printer(s)
  • Individual assignment:
    • Design, document and 3D print an object (small, few cm3, limited by printer time) that could not be easily made subtractively
    • 3D scan an object (and optionally print it)

From Assignment Details.

Group Assignment / Testing Design Rules for your 3D Printer(s)

Printing an object that could not be made with a subtractive process.

UltiMaker Overview

(See below, print insert versions...)

The Squiggle spring design was something I've seen a few places (including Magnus' Card-a-pult, relevant also to final project, maybe due to paper handling).

Out of curiosity, I tried Cura Digital Factory (their in-browser slicer). I signed up and tried their prepare screen.

Cure DF Prepare

I couldn't find any way to add a pause in the browser software, so I went to PrusaSlicer, and Cura (downloaded version).

PrusaSlicer With Pause

I had a look in the C-Code file. M601 is the layer pause, but there is no M602. Resume is triggered by the user.

;LAYER_CHANGE
;Z:4.6
;HEIGHT:0.2
;BEFORE_LAYER_CHANGE
;M117 Layer 22;
;LAYER:22
G1 E.0952 F1500 ; retract
G92 E0 ; reset extrusion distance
G1 Z4.6 F9000 ; simple layer change
;PAUSE_PRINT
M117 Place acrylic and resume printing
M601
G1 X149.925 Y106.816 ; etc...

...And when paused, make your insert:

UltiMaker Insert

Results of UMS5 Strength Tests

UltiMaker Tests

After resuming, filament stuck detected, caused by not enough clearance between the nozzle and the acrylic. This wasn't my print fortunately:

Blob of Death photo

Making Custom Test (Overhang, and Bridging) on the G1

Photo resultBridge File Screenshot

It also tests retraction and stringing.

Bridge File Screenshot

Scanning

  • OpenScan Mini
  • Built this week from the kit. Uses a spare Raspberry Pi 3B.

Photogrammetry

I'm hoping to use OpenScan Cloud (not received a token key yet), a cloud-based Photogrammetry service developed by the same developer. In the meantime, I will use Meshroom or Reality Composer (as documented by Diarmuid Kelly in 2025).

So far, I have a folder of images :)

Scanning Images

Files