3D Printed Prothetic Vanity Cover

We have been tasked as a group to design, print, and assemble a 3D printed prosthetic cover for a client. They wanted their lower leg prosthetic cover to look like the movie characters RoboCop or Terminator. We also 3D scanned his prosthetic to make a computer model of it in order for us to design the cover around it. This Instructable will show how we made the model, designed the cover, and the 3D printing process we used.

Source Photo

Materials:

• PLA filament for the 3D printer
• Sandpaper to create a rough surface for the paint to attach to
• Spray paint or similar for color or design purpose, we used chrome paint
• Velcro or other attachment materials

Needed Software and Technology:

• 3D Scanner to scan the prosthetic
• 3D Modeling Software (CATIA, Solidworks, Fusion360, etc.)
• 3D Printer

Additional Recources:

• Free CATIA - https://edu.3ds.com/en/software/catia-v5-student-e...
• 3D Printing Company - https://www.fastradius.com/capabilities/additive-m...

As this is a newer concept, we had very little references on how we were going to construct and attach the cover. There are not many companies that create covers like these.

We worked with our client to examine their prosthetic to identify attachment points for the cover. This was our first design objective.

Additionally, the cover needed to be lightweight, due to the weight the prosthetic adds to our client's body, to reduce fatigue. Making the cover as light as possible was another design objective.

Thanks to the 3D Printing and Scanning Lab for NIAR at Wichita State University. We then set up time to scan our client's prosthetic se we could get the best fit possible and model the cover based off of this scan.

There are now smartphone apps that can do 3D scanning of objects, so we recommend those if you're making this at home and don't have access to a lab.

Our client was very specific about the look of it and wanted more of a Terminator-style brushed metal finish. They wanted something that would stand out to the eye and make people wonder what that is on their prosthetic.

To make the cover structurally sound, we included shapes within it for the support, see the attached sketches.

We went through several different iterations with our client to get their feedback on the design.

Modeling the cover was a bit complex due to the curvature of the prosthetic and figuring out where our attachment points should be.

We had to develop a surface off of the scan of the prosthetic and from there we started to create what would then be a cover.

The cover has the exact curvature of the prosthetic giving it a nice and flush fitting when attached.

Once we finished modeling our part, we needed to save our part so we can open it in the 3D printing software. The 3D printing software gave us all the necessary information before, during, and after our print. The software shows us the specific dimensions of our part and where it will be placed on the printer. We are also given a time limit for how long our print is going to take (in this case about 24 hours).

We then sanded the part and removed any supports.

We applied a chrome spray paint to achieve the Terminator-style finish the client requested.

We used a Velcro strap so it was easy for Tim to take off and put back on and adjust as needed. Other methods of attachment can be used as well.

These pictures show the final 3D printed and chrome-painted cover that we delivered to our client. They loved it!