A Good All Around 3D Scanner

[Volcom7114]

Hello everyone and thanks ahead of time for for all the info! My name is Dennis aka Big-D

After 16 years in the Navy and 6 tours over the pond I became disabled (and please no pity, I knew the risks when I signed the papers) anyway I use a wheelchair most the time but can still walk some with some help of a cane and holding onto things, so I went back to my roots witch is machining, my grandfather was a gunsmith and machinist all his life and I grew up next door to him so since I could walk and talk I was working with the machine's. Now that I have a nice set up shop that has taken me some years to build up I'm now ready for my 3D printer, I ordered the M2 with the LCD and an extra glass top (I have two young boys and this is my first 3D printer) I also got 8 spools of filament 4 ease of ABS and PLA and also got the Simplify3D. Now I would like to get a descent 3D scanner that can scan pieces from rather small in size to something larger say 8" high and my budget is about $1,000.00 dollars as it has taken me 2 1/2 years to save the money for all this. Now I have seen the hand held scanners like the Sense 3D Scanner witch seems to have poor reviews. Then there is the MakerBot (over priced it seems?) scanner that also seems to have rather poor reviews and last I have seen the Matter and Form MFS1V1 3D Scanner and this also has mixed reviews. Now understand guys/girls that my wife is a full time college student and I have two younger boys and my pay is not taxed so I don't get to file taxes and get 10 grand from the government every year so I must save for any "toys" I want. So my question I guess is what else is there out there in my budget that's going to take a decent guilty 3D scan?

Thanks much everyone!

Big D

[insta]

I have the Matter & Form and hate it. I can't get a good scan out of it, but other people do, so it's probably operator error.

Before purchasing a scanner, I'd first look into 123D Catch. You take a variety of photos with a normal digital camera (or phone camera), they get uploaded to a cloud service, and a watertight 3D model is sent back. The more photos you add the better it'll do (rotate yourself around the part, rather than the part on a turn-table). I found it to be surprisingly accurate.

What's your goal? If you're using it to scan parts you've created (specifically, mechanical parts) you're going to be sorely disappointed no matter what, vs. modelling them in CAD to begin with. If you're scanning in sculptures or other art, that's a different story.

[jimc]

insta gave real good advise. scanners are for surface type models only like statues. i know this does not answer your question but invest some of your time into learning a good cad software instead. you will be far better off then if you want to do a scan of a statue then use the catch app like insta recommended

[Volcom7114]

Thanks guy's! I have two seat's of BobCad-Cam v26 and v27 and a seat of Solidworks so I know a thing or two about Cad but I'm looking to scan pieces/parts to be able to make a 3D print to use as a pattern for my foundry. im able to melt anything from aluminum to cast iron and I use an oil based sand called petrobond, its a fine sand that can get very good detail. For me to make a pattern from wood and then get the draft on all the sides right also calcalate in for shrinkage of the metal can take weeks and sometimes a few months with a 3D printer its a matter of hours really. So my main use will be for pattern making and some spar parts for the RC trucks from time to time also just to play with cuz you all make it sound so damn fun! lol

Also if anyone wants something made as far as metal goes in a machine shop let me know ill be happy to help out!

Here are a few pics of my shop.

[insta]

Thanks guy's! I have two seat's of BobCad-Cam v26 and v27 and a seat of Solidworks so I know a thing or two about Cad but I'm looking to scan pieces/parts to be able to make a 3D print to use as a pattern for my foundry. im able to melt anything from aluminum to cast iron and I use an oil based sand called petrobond, its a fine sand that can get very good detail. For me to make a pattern from wood and then get the draft on all the sides right also calcalate in for shrinkage of the metal can take weeks and sometimes a few months with a 3D printer its a matter of hours really. So my main use will be for pattern making and some spar parts for the RC trucks from time to time also just to play with cuz you all make it sound so damn fun! lol

Also if anyone wants something made as far as metal goes in a machine shop let me know ill be happy to help out!

Here are a few pics of my shop.

The shop looks fun, but I hate to say your uses for a 3D scanner are off base. Granted, an expensive scanner will do that perfectly. A cheap scanner (< $1000) will end up with a speckly blobby mess trying to capture things like molds and forms.

You can do the same thing with CAD in a few hours, and you can even use PLA for lost-wax investment casts. Thread incoming at some point about that...

[ednisley]

a few pics of my shop.

That's a fine setup!

The First Rule of Machine Tools: if you can see the floor, you don't have enough. Works for me... [grin]

[Volcom7114]

I have messed with CAD and CAM for many many years but some things aren't worth the time it takes to draw up in CAD for all you have as an end result. I cant sit at a computer and play CAD all day i have two kids in sports and that takes time.. I have seen many many people use a 3D scanner to make patterns for foundry work and lost PLA casting witch is very messy and not something I'm into myself, I do more casting in Alum than anything. The printer wont be used just for making patterns but for anything I want to play with along with my boys and the whole point is what scanner have people had success with and what ones are just paper weight.. insta I think you missed what i want to do, I don't want to take scan's of moulds or forms but the pattern that makes the mould/form. Think of it as anything you would want to make more of, so a hand or an A-Arm off an RC truck or just anything I want to print and then cast or just print and use for the hell of it or to prototype something that has been made in CAD before taking an two hundred dollar chunk of copper or something and start cutting metal away from it being unsure of the out come (this happens often when i send something from CAD to CAM and to my CMC lathe)

This isn't something I do for a living at all its just a hobby and something to pass time when I need it so I'm expecting flaws and such but more than anything its a new toy to play with and I want a scanner to be able to speed things up and it don't have to be 100% perfect cuz I can always put it in CAD and fix something a lot faster than i could draw the whole thing in CAD..make sense? lol

ednisley= I wish I could add more machines but I really have everything I need well mostly everything lol I have to keep room for my wheelchair and chips are hell on aired tires on a wheelchair when you have to buy new tires and tubes every 2-3 months as it is :/

[Earsmith]

I have the Matter and Form scanner as well and the scans were very disappointing under any condition. But the latest software update 2.4 is literary night and day. Objects scanned under earlier version were a mess and now the patterns in the object can be clearly seen. If anybody is intrested it might motovate me to print then scan and reprint.

[pandelume]

You could try Skanect:

http://skanect.occipital.com/

You can download a free-for-personal-use version and I believe it only requires a microsoft kinect (or equivalent hardware). I'm not sure it'll suit your needs, but for that price it's probably worth a try.

Going back to how you want to use the scans, I'm not sure it'll work out. I basically want the same thing you do, but from what I can tell this is the situation: professional scanners (i.e. create dimensionally accurate scans and are reliable) are too expensive, and hobby scanners - which mostly seem to be image processing based - are either not all that accurate or don't reliably give good results. On top of that, editing the scans afterwards is something of a dark art - at least if you want to accurately represent a real object. Mainly because the scan is just a mesh, so editing any given feature is not easy using solid-based CAD software. The best I've been able to do along those lines has been to import the scan and convert it to a solid then add the required features back in. Because the scan isn't necessarily all that accurate, this usually requires having the original part in front of you so you can measure it as you model the critical features. It's definitely better than having to model complex geometries from scratch, but it's still kind of a pain.

Having said all that, if your tolerances are such that you can scan and print without editing then the headache goes away. I'd suppose the only way to know that is to try a given scanner and see how close you get.

[insta]

I have the Matter and Form scanner as well and the scans were very disappointing under any condition. But the latest software update 2.4 is literary night and day. Objects scanned under earlier version were a mess and now the patterns in the object can be clearly seen. If anybody is intrested it might motovate me to print then scan and reprint.

I hope this is true...I'll give it a shot soon.