Hi, my name is Dan and I'm a technical engineer here at Solid Print. Today I'm going to be talking you through the full workflow of 3D scanning a part reverse engineering it in SOLIDWORKS, 3D printing It, and then post-processing it using the new Formlabs Form 4 ecosystem. We previously printed this part on the Form 3L, so we're going to be comparing the print speeds, the materials, and the build volume of this to the new Form 4, as well as its post-processing using the new generation Form 4 Wash and the Form Cure. Here I have a front bumper intake vent from a BMW Z4, except one of the clips is broken. We want to create a replacement, but it's going to be very hard to measure a model accurately using just callipers. Luckily, I have something a bit more powerful than callipers with me here today. So my plan is to use the Shining 3D FreeScan Combo to 3D scan the part within 20 microns of accuracy. We can then take it across into SOLIDWORKS, reverse engineer it, and print it on the Form 4, giving us a final part that will fit perfectly into place and have really similar mechanical properties, and a similar surface finish to the original piece. So let's begin with the scanning. I've taken the original part, and I've placed it on the turntable surrounded by positioning targets. This allows me to rotate the part freely, and the positioning targets on the table will be used by the scanner to figure out where it is and how the part is moving. Launching the software for the combo. You can see we have two options for our scan, laser or infrared. This is where the name combo comes from. The scanners ability to scan using either technology IR scanning has the ability to track without using positioning targets, which is great for larger projects with lots of features. However, for this project, we want the accuracy and precision of the laser, which will be accurate to 20 microns. Hopefully this is far within BMW’s manufacturing tolerances. The first thing we do is quickly scan all of the targets so the software already knows where they are before we start the scan. This also allows us to fit a cutting plane along the turntable, so the scanner knows not to pick up any data below that point. We can now begin scanning using all 26 laser lines for the first scan to quickly capture all of the data. You can see the software guiding me to hold the scanner at the right distance from the part, showing the laser lines are blue when they're too far away, and red when I go to close. By keeping the laser in the green, I know that the scanner is picking up the data well. there are a few areas of this part which the 26 lasers can't quite see due to the data being deep in narrow gaps. For this, we can switch to using one single laser, which uses only one laser and one camera positioned right next to each other, allowing the scanner to get deep into narrow holes in tight spaces, allowing us to get the backside of these clips here. I now have a scan of the one side of the part, but not the other side. I can flip over the part and add a new project to the group, and then begin the scanning process again, scanning the opposite side of the part with both sides scanned and cleaned up. We now need to align and merge them. The software will do feature based alignment, looking at the geometry of the parts to align the two scans. Here it shows the result and we can check that it looks correct. It looks right to me. So I'm going to click on the mesh processing to combine the two meshes into the end result. And we can now export this is an STL file. We are now going to take this STL file into EXModel where we can fit some features to the mesh to give us some references to build from in SOLIDWORKS. EXModel is a great tool for reverse engineering 3D scans, as it lets us build parametrically around the scan data and compare back to our mesh. However, for this project, we're just going to use it to fit some accurate references, which we can then use in SOLIDWORKS. Let's talk through how we went about reverse engineering this part in SOLIDWORKS. We start with the mesh loaded as a graphics body to use as a reference, as well as the planes which we have created in EXModel. The first feature we create is an outline of the flat top section, which we can then extrude all the other surfaces from. We're doing this using surfaces because the part is equally thick all over, and we can thicken it later in the process. Each one of these extrusions are being cut to shape based on the dimensions taken from the mesh. Once all the faces in the air intake are created, we loft between them to create one continuous surface. The bottom section is then extruded and the clips are created. We work around the model, creating all the clips once again using the mesh data below to get the dimensions correct. Now, with the entire model created as a surface, we can thicken it by one millimetre to create a solid body. The final step is to work around all the clips and add in additional fillets, which weren't created in the original sketches. We now have the end result, which we can export as an STL file to take on to print. So we now have a perfect parametric model of this part ready to be 3D printed. We can take the STL that was exported from SOLIDWORKS and we can load it into preform, which is the Form 4 slicing software. Orientation is really important for a part like this, as we need to consider the position of the support material as one side of this part will be visible on the car. It's important not to have support material touch this face to ensure it has the best surface finish possible. If we slice this file, we can see how much resin the print is going to use and that it's only going to take three hours and 57 minutes to print. We're going to print this in black V5 because this should have a very similar surface finish to the original injection moulded part. We can send this to the printer now and see the result in just four hours time. For comparison, we printed this part on a Form 4 and the Form 3L in tough 2000. You can see the two print side by side here. You may notice that the Form 4 is significantly faster than the Form 3 series printers. Why is this? Well, this is thanks to the new technology which Formlabs have developed for the Form 4 called Low Force Display. This technology uses an LED array below a screen, which can precisely expose specific areas of the build volume to light. Using the screen, the entire layer can be exposed all at once, meaning that each layer takes the same amount of time to cure no matter how full the build area is. This is so much quicker than the Form 3, which uses a single point laser to cure each part of the layer. This new development is great for batch production because if you're already printing one part, it will take no more time for you to print two, three, or however many you can fit on the platform. We're going to run through these prints again, but in grey V4 on the Form 3L and black V5 on the Form 4, we can again see the time difference between the two prints, but it's worth noticing the improved material properties of the Formlabs V5 resins also. These materials have been developed to be tougher, more dimensionally stable, and more colour accurate than the previous generation of materials, giving us prints which rival injection moulded components. With the print finished, I can now take it out of the Form 4 and put it into the new Form 4 wash station, which is slightly bigger to fit the new increased platform size. This will then wash the part in IPA for a set amount of time before lifting the part out, so it doesn't spend more time than it needs in the tank. At this point, I'll take the part off the build platform and place it in the cure for 60 degrees for 15 minutes. Post curing parts increases their strength and stability, and it also ensures no uncured resin remains in the part. With the cure cycle over, I can now carefully remove the supports from the part. So now it's time for the final test. Does the reverse engineered part fit onto the car quite as well as the original does? Well, comparing them side by side, we can see how similar they look, all thanks to the surface finish of the black V5 resin and fitting it into place. We can see it fits perfectly. So let's have a quick round up of everything that we've done today. First, we used the shining FreeScan combo to 3D scan the part that we wanted to reverse engineer. We then took it across into EXModel to fit some planes and entities to the part to reference in the next step. The reverse engineering was done in SOLIDWORKS accurate to 20 microns thanks to the scanning. We then printed this on the Form 4 in Black V5 resin, resulting in this a perfect replica of the BMW Z4 front bumper air intake. Thank you so much for joining us for this. If you'd like to know any more or have any questions, your team of Solid Print experts are here and ready to help. So please do reach out to us using the number or the email shown on screen.