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Posted by hipstomp | 20 Jul 2011
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Comments (9)
As ID'ers we're privy to technologies that seem mundane to us through familiarity, but it's interesting to see how people that have never heard of RP react when it's demonstrated for them. That goes for people as highly educated as the theoretical physicist David Kaplan, featured in this NatGeo video, who travels to Z Corporation to see if they can scan and 3D-print a working model of his crescent wrench.
It's kind of cool to watch Kaplan pull the finished part out of the powder. I know most of us have already seen things similar to this, but you get the sense Kaplan's head would explode if he looked inside your average industrial design department.
Comments
I've received this video several times from co-workers and my father and I felt the same way. It's also obvious that it is not the same wrench.
From my understanding the scanner cannot detect hidden parts... So there has been a level of manual CAD work here that seems to not be mentioned. I have noticed Z-corp are very cheeky with their marketing...
While it isn't the "same" wrench, this is for real.
definitely some extra CAD behind the scenes on the hidden part.
great sweater though.
Everybody who used this for real testing of parts or making models knows what a pain in the ass this can be. Out of the machine it is super fragile for details and once you add the hardener it becomes impossible to control it. Thin walls become soggy with the impregnated material, start to wobble and then are not straight any more.
For ID evaluation, nothing beats a CNC mill in my opinion, for ME evaluation, you can go for SLA parts but Z-corp is soo 2002. 10 years ago it was a breakthrough I have to add. Plus they are rather cheap compared to the others.
As well as the CAD time involved to re-create the parts, there is fiddly manual labour involved to 'infiltrate' the powder with resin (Z-Corp's terminology) to give it reasonable strength.
Even then, there's no way that wrench could take significant force without failing, and it would be useless on smaller nuts.
Whether you call it prudent editing or cheeky marketing, misinformation like this can lead to disappointed customers when 3D printing fails to meet their high expectations.
That said, there is an undeniable wow factor in holding your first 3D print, which they captured pretty well here :)
the wrench he brought in to be scanned had a different handle than the one produced
In response to all the controversy, Michael Mock of Rapidform put together a technical overview of the software steps in between scanning a wrench and printing a functional model of it. The whole process takes about 45 minutes, but it's been boiled into a 12 minute video. Anyone interested in the "how" can see it at http://youtu.be/PvfqoaCw5vQ
If you lose your tool in space you can print out another one? Not with this process as it does seem to use gravity to keep the powder down. I've used one of these a few years ago and the detailing wasn't fine enough. Think it was an old one though.
The 3D printer that blows my mind is the one with resin that gets melted together with a laser. You do need to construct a fragile honeycomb structure for pieces that are 'floating', so takes some extra work. Then you just tear that out and you have a super slick plastic-like material. I find it weird that it's mostly the powder ones you hear about though...