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3D Scanning and Printing.

Started by John Candy, Jan 12 2018 08:48

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John Candy

3D Scanning and Printing.

I am on the verge of taking the leap into 3D, with a view to producing my own scale figures ("British" folk in 1930s/40s/50s garb)since available items are either wrong scale or modern American/Continental fashions (women in Jeans, blokes in Stetsons, shorts or Lederhosen, etc.).

Also want to be able to produce patterns for casting loco and rolling stock parts (particularly carriage sides) as well as architectural subjects, to produce more authentic buildings.

I know that the finer the printer output, the better the finish and am looking at hardware in the 20 to 100 Micron range. The two technologies available are SLA (Stereo Lithography which uses liquid resin) and FDM (uses reels of plastic thread).

There are few affordable (for hobby use) printers which can print below 100 microns, one being the Cel-Robox-2 (FDM type) and the other FormLabs 2 (SLA and much more expensive and potentially "messy" but is said to give better results).

Since CAD is not my forte, I shall be relying in part upon being able to scan subjects and manipulate the scans to produce the correct scale output.

The first step will be to acquire the scanner and see whether I am competent to produce the necessary files (and that the scanner can capture sufficient detail to produce decent models).
The scanner I have been looking at is the Sense 3D , a handheld scanner which gives more flexibility than a fixed camera type.

I know some of you have experience of 3D (either as a producer or a customer of a scanning service) and hope you can provide feedback on experiences with this technology.

Regards,
John.
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

Spitfire2865

If you need help designing some components, I can give you a hand. Im good at artificial 3D design such as rolling stocm parts, but am absolutely hopeless at anything natural or organic.
-Trevor Young

Gavin_B

I have 2 Wanhao I3+ FDM printers,  they can print a layer height of 40 microns.   Well setup they are good printers.  Also look at the Wanhao D7 resin printer which is similar but cheaper to the form2.


LankyTank

John,

If you haven't done so, it might be worth talking to Alan at Modelu. Could save you a bob or two. These are the outfit that scan you at model Railway shows, suitably posed, then produce 'mini me's'

John Candy

Thanks for the feedback, particularly Trevor for the kind offer of help with the CAD aspects.

I have followed up Gavin's suggestion of the Wanhao brand which I had not previously looked at.

I particularly want an enclosed cabinet type (one reason for the Robox being high on the list, the other being the 20 Micron capability) and there is a new Wanhao enclosed model "Duplicator 6" which can also print down to 20 Microns but at not much more than half the price of the Robox, so it is now high on my list , see https://www.3djake.uk/wanhao-3d-printer-spare-parts/duplicator-6-with-cover#js-faq

Still mulling over scanning options.... have just become aware of "Photogrammetry", where software generates 3D images from a series of ordinary digital photos taken with camera or smartphone. Seems to involve a subscription with processing done "online" with uploading/downloading files from a remote server.

Regards,
John
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

cabbage

John,
You are in the grip of an obsession!!! 20 MICRONS!?!?!? that equates to 0.02mm x 22.6 = 0.452mm in real world. I am printing on my machine at 0.2mm layer and to be honest I cannot tell the difference between that and 0.06mm other than the vast increase in time taken for the latter layer depth.

If you are going to print people at 20 Microns then there will be  3,982 layers for it to print a (scale) 1.8m high person....

Draw a circle 2mm in diameter with a 1 mm centre.
Move back until you can no longer see the circle, i.e. it goes solid.
This is the limit of the resolution of your eye. (Having Glaucoma this test is done every 3 months!)

Divide the distance by four and this is how close you would have to be to notice a distance of 0.5mm. Standard machine stitching is 2.1mm or four layers to every stitch on the shirt...

regards

ralph

Doddy

Keep going John, you are on the right track!

I have recently had my eye on the results of my friends industrial grade 3D machine with the following specification:

       
  • Nozzle diameter: 0.4mm (400 microns)
  • Layer thickness: 0.1-0.4mm (100-400 microns)
  • XY-axis positioning accuracy: 0.012mm (12 microns)
  • Z-axis positioning accuracy: 0.004mm (4 microns)
However, I wont be going with that machine as having had G3 scale Class 45 cabs printed at 16 microns per layer, I know well what the difference is, so for your stated purposes of producing masters for casting I know what I would aim for myself. I will qualify this in that I had the printing done commercially using layers of curable liquid photopolymer onto a build tray creating exceptional detail, surface smoothness and precision.
Secondly, - Scanning
Your proposed scanner only has a 1mm resolution. Since the quality of the 3D print depends on the quality of the scan, I would suggest this model is not going to deliver much, particularly as  talking to Alan at Modelu, he confirmed that the software has been optimised for scanning people and that items such as whistles and other locomotive fittings have caused him many problems scanning and printing, particularly as the memory of the unit is very, very small and cannot accommodate fine resolution scans of large items.

Talking to Alan about scanning class 40 and 45 bogie parts like buffers and axleboxes it became quite apparent that Alan thought it was thoroughly impractical.
There is a very good handheld unit which is independently powered (batteries) and has the finesse of very large memory capacity and a scanning resolution down to 0.00x microns- but you will need £20,000 for that baby!
"You don't know what you don't know"

John Candy

Ralph,
A few years ago I was discussing with Mike Williams a proposal to buy a 3D printer and at that time the resolution of affordable types was more than 100 microns (which to me sounded very fine) but Mike said it would not be good enough for producing patterns, so I gave up on the idea. If I were printing scale figures (people) then I would not go down to 20 microns....50 to 100 would probably be good enough given the undulating surfaces. However, if I were making patterns for carriage sides (or the cab for LMS 10000.....that is still on my project list) then I would not be happy with striations which would have to be sanded down.
The limited printing footprint (approx. 8" square) means that long, flattish, patterns would need to be printed in sections.

Doddy,
Yes, I saw the hand held scanner which was advertised at "less than $20000" ....... it's not on my shopping list!

Thanks for the input from Modelu, I had in mind to use the 3D Sense (or similar cheapish handheld) just for scanning people and large objects which would be reduced substantially in size for printing and where minor striation would not matter too much (e.g. architectural subjects with textured surfaces). I have just taken delivery of a new HP laptop with the i5 8250 quad core cpu (latest Intel 8th generation chip) which I was assured can cope with 3D scanning and (via USB 3.0 connection to scanner) should overcome memory/storage difficulties.

For high resolution work (carriage sides, etc.) I am now veering towards photogrammetry and 3D CAD.

Regards,
John.
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

Andy Mould

Have a look at the 3D forum section of RMweb and Simon Br Blue posts he has purchased a formlabs form2 which is kind of on my list although expensive and he has now started his own prints I am watching with interest the progress we also have G1 member in our local group with a form 1+ he has produced some good work with it but it not all plain sailing especially as I'm looking to print 'waxes' to go straight to lost wax casting.

cabbage

You can do "Lost Wax" using PLA. We have made parts using Aluminium in a Plaster of Paris mould for my Nieces "Huffacker" inlet manifold for her Landrover.

regards

ralph

Doddy

Quote from: cabbage on Feb 22 2018 12:47
You can do "Lost Wax" using PLA

Unfortunately PLA won't burn away in a hot kiln in the same way wax does.
"You don't know what you don't know"

cabbage

We used an oven! The PLA melted out of the plaster cast and puddled in the tray underneath. The aluminium was melted and then poured into the voided cast.

Regards

Ralph

Doddy

Quote from: cabbage on Feb 22 2018 17:27
We used an oven! The PLA melted out of the plaster cast and puddled in the tray underneath. The aluminium was melted and then poured into the voided cast.

Regards

Ralph

GOT IT!




cdn images
"You don't know what you don't know"

Andy Mould

One reason to go for SLA as you can print in ash free casting resin that can go direct to lost way, hence its the favoured system of dentists and Jewellers

Doddy

Quote from: Andy Mould on Feb 22 2018 21:43
One reason to go for SLA as you can print in ash free casting resin that can go direct to lost way, hence its the favoured system of dentists and Jewellers



That's what I thought as well, the master wax image SLA would need to burn off within complicated moulds where as the PLA would just pool in pockets and ruin the casting.

"You don't know what you don't know"