3D Scanner Review - CR-Scan Ferret Pro!

The CR-Scan Ferret Pro from Creality (maker of the Ender line of 3D printers) is one of the most affordable 3D scanners to hit the market, and I'm going to walk you through a few projects I did with it including an angle grinder chop saw mount and a really creepy hedgehog!
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Until Dec 28th, 2023, you can get it for 10% off from the Creality Store
store.creality.com/products/cr-scan-ferret-pro-3d-scanner
Page coupon: 10% OFF
Valid time: Dec 15-28
Final Price: $386.10
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===TIMELINE===
00:00 - CR-Scan Ferret Pro - Intro & Background
01:20 - Review Strategy
02:54 - Device Specs and Features
04:16 - Unboxing
04:53 - Setup & Wireless Bridge
06:42 - First Scan - Wireless Mouse
07:38 - Main Course - Angle Grinder Chop Saw Clamp
09:53 - Model Cleanup (Meshmixer)
10:43 - Model Cleanup (Fusion360)
11:26 - Assembly and Testing
12:00 - Face Scanning & Hedgehogs
13:46 - Scanner and Software Issues
16:27 - Seashell Scanning
17:50 - Final Thoughts
18:31 - Outro

[@javiles2331]

I love what you did with the scan camera “holder”, I would love to see a video showing how you did it.

[@Byzmax]

That was a great review. No nonsense, clear , considered and honest. You have a new subscriber

[@mrnlce7939]

I think you're supposed to scan the flat surface first then put the object on the turn table/ table top. You could try putting markers on the turn table (in a random pattern) to help with the harder to scan objects. Love the jig by the way. Great video. Keep up the good work.

[@jbwalker841]

I work in thr manufacturing industry and I deal with a lot of manufacturers and distributors of machine tools, CMMs, scanners, etc. From what i understand, the scanners themselves arent really that different, better/worse. Etc. What you are paying for is the software and thats where the major quality/performance differences lie. This may be more related to industrial grade scanners, but im sure it applies to consumer grade scanners to some degree.

[@larrythehedgehog]

Honestly I think this thing is more for complex geometry. Which is why id want a 3d scanner in the first place. Simple objects I could just bust out my calipers for. Thanks for the video!

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

I don't fully agree. I don't need to scan a peanut butter jar, but the reason it fails is the same reason I kept getting false tracks when scanning my angle grinder. Even highly irregular objects could have features that throw off tracking when you get too close. That said, markers are a totally reasonable solution that should resolve this if I could get it working. I suspect I will figure it out, or Creality will release an update that tracks them properly.

[@torenr]

You got yourself a new subscriber. Good and honest review. I wish more reviews were like this. Are your 3D files available online?

[@Alkhymia]

Nice review, detailed and honest!, its posible share the turntable? thanks!

[@christianrobertadzic9321]

Hi! I really enjoyed your review, you made it so clean and easy to follow. I'm interested in your turn table design. Do you have posted maybe a DIY kit or dome info how you made it? I wish to make for me also a kind of turn table too. I'm also a newcomer in this 3D world. 🙂 Thanks for the review and I'm waiting for more videos from you. BTW. Have a nice New Year!

[@Traqr]

Some of the tracking issues could be mitigated by reprinting your turntable. A matte finish could eliminate the textural moiré effect visible in some of your shots, but the bigger fix would be to make it clear to the scanner what orientation the table is in either by embossing a pattern in the surface or by adding an asymmetric border to key off the edge. Just make sure the map is detailed enough to provide consistent tracking while also being fully determinate (ie. no part looks enough like another part to confuse the software), like a fiducial marker.

[@karianttonen8699]

Great review. Answered my questions about this scanner. I would like to know what meshmixer tutorial you found useful?

[@YogeshPatel9]

Might be your beta version, but try texture mode to improve tracking on more regular looking objects

[@PJgearhead]

Thanks for review. I want to scan a large rocker cover with the Ferret. Reckon this scanner would be up to it with good dimensional accuracy?

[@missilpeludo8813]

Really good review ! I just got one a week ago and “for me” it’s giving a hard time! I’ll keeping play with this new toy! It’s very interesting

[@Pickles_The_Wise]

Excellent review! is the turntable available anywhere? happily donate some beer tokens for it :)

[@admintmilgart8585]

Thanks for the video mate.... Thats a cool little turntable rig you have there in the background. Is it home made diy, or is there some STL's on thingiverse on this one. I would like to build one too ☺

[@_Spider2077]

put markers on the turntable as well it needs minimum 4 markers to work

[@cpace123]

I got his mainly for scanning heads. And it works pretty good. Better then my Photogrammetry results. I am satisfied, but am still tweaking it. I hope future firmware updates will make it even better.

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

Did you get it working with hair? I tried so many times, and I was extremely satisfied with the face scan part but couldn't get the hair for my life. I just started playing with Meshroom (photogrammetry) and I'm very impressed with it. But feels like it's a different use case. You don't need a special camera, but you do need a beefy computer/GPU, and the software is pretty complicated. Also, you can't use a turntable with it since it uses the background for camera position estimation.

[@Petricius]

I also played around with photogrammetry and meshroom. It took me several hours (2 days) to get the best result. You can see the result in this video:kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXuYg2iwgZdqjLs. So I am going to get a 3d scanner, thanks for your video.

[@corwin.macleod]

​@@ObsessiveEngineering You can and should use a turn table for photogrammetry. It's just that Meshroom devs to this day still didn't implement a masking functionality for the background, so you should preprocess your images beforehand by replacing the background with black color in some other software. I've seen people using pitch black background for turntable surface, but they still have to postprocess the result. Agisoft has masking for this since like forever, although it's not free.

[@cpace123]

I would also add. If you have and old web cam. It also makes a fair web cam. You just have to disable the RGB and IR cameras in device manager. Then it can be used as a web cam

[@valentinkrajzelman4649]

lmao didnt thought of that

[@poetasdolobs7347]

New subscriber here, excellent videos. Question have you tried scanning bigger models like a room or the car indoors? Thx!

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

I have not. I read that it should handle line 2m^3 scale, but I didn't try anything that big. I considered trying a car dashboard or something but I clearly had enough on my plate for this review 😅

[@mpcaz]

Can you tell me where you got the files for the Cutoff tool jig or did you design it? are the .3mf or .stl files available to buy? Great review and now i"m thinking of getting a CR-Scan Ferret Pro.

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

This is the model I started with. I'm sure it works fine for the specified grinder: www.thingiverse.com/thing:5352350

[@Thayes1979]

Love mine but there is a learning curve. For the grinder I would have tried to do multiple scans and then combine them. I recently scanned my milling machine head in multiple scans and the software combined them perfectly. My question is where can I get your turn table build?

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

How do you combine multiple scans? What software? I kinda botched my turntable, by assuming that a 28BYJ-48 motor would be able to turn the table directly (with no gear reduction). It's really not a good design and it just barely pulled off what I did in this video. However, I could provide the curved rack and pinion design, which worked quite well, besides having to overcomplicate it with a brake so it doesn't fall and slam into the table when the power is cut 😅. I'll have to clean it up and post it on Printables. Note however that the rack is printed in a single piece which is too big for most printers. I designed it for my 400x400mm build plate.

[@Thayes1979]

@@ObsessiveEngineeringI use the Creality software for this scanner and the process is called multi board project. I will say that this did not work for me until I updated to the latest version 2.3.5 release on 12/21. I also think the reason it worked for this project is the fact there are a lot of detail or it to align.

[@hashemotoMan]

is there is any software using limitation for dealing with modelling ?

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

I do not believe there is any license restrictions on using the scanned models (if that's what you're asking). I couldn't find a clear answer on their website or documentation, and if they did have restrictions I feel like they would be highlighted and easy to find.

[@DailyFrankPeter]

Knowing how every maker tried or wanted to make a jig like that at some point, you could probably walk into a home depot, scan a lot of power tools and make a killing selling those scans ;)

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

Hah, good point. If I updated the turntable to work from above, so I could hang the tools to spin them, I think it would be a pretty reliable process. Most of these tools have enough irregular features that it would work well.

[@richard_westerlaken]

Hi, I recently purchased cr scanner ferret se, I want to connect it to my Android phone, what do I need to do so, I succeed to connect with the extra USB adapter but when I start to scan, it disconnects. I think it is missing adaptieve power. Please help.

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

It's been a while since I used it (and dont have it with me) but I'm pretty sure there is a separate power cord for the scanner. The phone alone cannot provide enough power to run the scanner. If you have the same version as me, it comes with a tripod that has a built-in rechargeable battery that can charge your phone and power the scanner at the same time. The instructions show the different wiring setups

[@javiles2331]

I would like to see if you can scan a entire body… I can’t it’s frustrating

[@Prof.Polymath]

I didn’t think you could scan reflective objects?

[@ObsessiveEngineering]

Yeah they claim that you can with this scanner. I don't think I really settled the question in my testing, but it did achieve some level of tracking on that metal 123 block.