Don't believe it? Technical overview of how a functioning wrench can be made from a 3D scan

Michael Mock of Rapidform (http://www.rapidform.com) responds to some questions about the feasibility of printing a functional wrench from scan data from a Z Corp 3D scanner, as seen in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZboxMsSz5Aw.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Wrench
• technology
• 3D print
• Z Corp
• software
• rapidform
• reverse engineering

[Moltentank]

Eh ppl will print weapons

[CampKohler]

In the end, he who duplicates something complicated (moving parts) must have the same kind of knowledge had by the original engineer.

PS: You know, don't you, that the wrench parts come apart, so you don't really have to guess?

[ShaddowMannStuff]

Nice explanation of the what it really takes to make a wrench. I see the scanning process is needed to help speed up the CAD type drawing to get exact measurements and to get item ready for printing.

I want one ... 8^)

I will have to brush up on my CAD skills though

[sin331]

very good vid. but it seems that the scanning process is a bit useless since the entire wrench is basically made from scratch.

[Mock1YT]

@Renwoodpeaches You are exactly right about the original video. That's why we made this to show the missing piece, glad you liked it. Hopefully more people will understand A) that it is real, and B) what the process is like.

[Renwoodpeaches]

Awesome software! Much better then what i currently use, and combonation of Alias studio tools 12.0 and solidworks. Then again, I am self employed. They should have mentioned in the TV show, that additional post scanner cleanup was required to make it fuction like it did when the TV host pulled it out of the printer. O TV and its over simplification of things! Man i would love to intern or get paid to sweep the floors at Zcorp! Soo much i could learn!

[Mock1YT]

@punishalltrolls Most non-contact measurement only measure what you can see, so the outside surface. CT and Xray can help get data from inside a part, but are significantly more expensive.

[punishalltrolls]

a certain size and certain complexity. the laser only scans the surface?

[Yickth]

Impressive. Thank you for sharing.

[DancingTofu2]

@biztipoff Obviously the process here is slowed down for the purpose of illustration and explanation. Any professional drafter could draft this model accurately in 1 or 2 minutes. I think the point here is to show how the 3D scan is used to derive values that would be difficult to measure accurately otherwise and explain why the end product in the video it's responding to isn't perfectly identical to the original wrench.