Jay Leno Has the Things We Dream About – new 3D Scanner

Aside from the 1965 Shelby Mustang GT350 and the very first 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 ever made, Jay Leno has lots of toys that do things that you probably never even thought were possible … especially his new 3D scanner.

What if I told you that I could clone almost any object under the size of about a yard? Better yet, what if I told you that I could, without any sort of assembly, make the cloned object fully functional as soon as I cloned it?

“Bust out the straight-jacket and lock him away?” you say?  Well, FYI, all of this is possible and is actually happening at Jay Leno’s garage. Jay has this nifty little scanner called a Faro 3D Scanner which will scan an object based on thousands of points and create a 3D model of it on your computer.

From there, the Dimension 3D Printer takes the image data given to it by the scan and processes a plastic version of the scanned object. As strips of plastic are being fed to the machine it produces a life-size replica of the object.

To add to this seemingly unreal and futuristic technology is the fact that it produces the replica in the same working order as the original. So lets say I have wrench that I wanted to remake. I would simply get the wrench, scan it in with the 3D scanner and send it in the printer to have a perfectly operational wrench – moving parts and all. I can scroll up/down on the wheel to make the clamp bigger/smaller.

This technology creates some pretty big opportunities for people who need a part for something that has become rare. Just make the plastic molding based on a similar part, try and see if the part fits/works properly then have a machinist make a metal molding/piece from the plastic mold you have. The potential is nearly limitless.

Check out the video below for more information and a demonstration.