how to make (almost) anything

3D Scanning and Printing

Week 4 Tools/Resources:
Sindoh 3D printer
3D Systems Sense Scanner

I decided to dip my toe into an aspect of what I'm considering for my final project, which is to make some kind of wearable; possibly a mechanical ”flower” that responds to light or sound by blooming/closing. Although a very rudimentary version, this week I designed and 3d printed a series of rings, and then struggled my way through 3D scanning using the 3D Systems Sense scanner.

The design of each ring started with that same basic solid retangluar form, which then has other forms subtracted from it. They're not very complex forms, but there were some issues as I changed them from surfaces to meshes in Rhino. There were several areas which needed to be rebuilt before I could export them as .stl files--but I finally got fairly clean meshes! By rotating the rings flat I was able to set up the print file with hardly any supports, which was a little surprising, especially for the center ring.

I printed my file in combination with two other students' work. It took us some time to find a printer that was available and in working order, but it was straightforward from there. The group print begins!

Removing the foundation material from the final print was surprisingly tough. Several areas were totally fused to the print and eventually had to be pried off with various blades and then shaved down where it was a lost cause. Eventually it cleaned up ok.

3D Scanning

I had a lot of trouble with the 3d scanning. The handheld Sense scanner was tempermental, and it was very difficult to move at all during the scanning process without this happening CONSTANTLY:

What is going on???!?!?! I changed the objects I was scanning several times to see if it was possibly an issue of scale, form, or material (didn't think Legos would be this complicated). Initially, I had the most luck with a self-scan and got through half of a stapler, but neither scan produced a model that could have been sucessfully 3d printed without a ton of work post production. Because I had decent success scanning 180 degrees of most of the objects, I tried my luck with an electrical box mounted on the fab lab wall, which came out ok. Overall, I was disappointed in the image clarity and level of 3d detail. It would be worth trying other methods to see if there is a more reliable option, 'cause this isn't it.