Projects As seen on TV

I saw a place in Arlington, VA called the TechShop. It had a little bit of everything including 3D printers where you could create your own models and then print them out. The had a Shopbot too that CNC cuts wood and I am sure they have other capabilities as well. There is a membership fee based on what all you wanted use and do. Looked pretty cool and maybe this is what you could be looking for.


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

I'm working on setting up my son with some tools to do this type of thing. The kinect scanning "works" but it takes some time and knowledge to smooth out the data.

We've got the small prints working well so far.

Full Kustom, drunk mobile posting

 

My guess is not that they aren't capable of it but they don't want to do one off pieces for Joe blow walking in off the street. They are more than likely working for large companies that are continually sending them business and they don't need the little one off stuff interrupting their work for major clients.

 

What about Cleveland State University ?

 

Ok. I used to work in quality for this investment casting company.
Similar to a lost wax process. They may do it for you. It won't be on open casting though.
Give them a call.
They are out of Akron.

https://m.facebook.com/kovatchcastingsinc/

 

It's the future for preservation of anything tangible. Now all we need to do is get the cost down so it's accessible to all mechanics.

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

What I was getting at is that there's a bit of smoke & mirrors in the video. The part he reproduced (with onsite support from three vendors) was designed 100 yrs ago and is comparatively simple. Your crossover is much more complicated.
The 3d printers that were $1000 five yrs ago are now $399 and available in some dept. stores. Jay's was prob. $50K then & $33k now. The skill needed has not diminished as quickly. Five years ago the futurists said these would be in every household and as easy to use as a toaster oven. Arthur C. Clarke said that we overestimate technology in the short term and underestimate it in the long term. At least the 1st half is happening here.

 

Well I got over to the ThinkBox at the university last night and got some time on the scanner.
That's some WAY COOL STUFF!!!

Keep in mind, they won't do anything for you. They are there to answer questions, put out fires, and direct you to the information that you may need.

After 20 mins I knew how to use the arm. After another 1 hr I had a decent scan of the part on 3 sides. Then I got stuck trying to flip it and merge the 4th side. That was a frustrating PITA that became infinitely infuriating and required intimate working knowledge of the software. Huge learning curve on that one. They said that it can take 8hrs or so to merge simple scans for someone who knows the software.
I took a break.

I came back and thought why not put it on 16" stand offs and go around the whole thing 360 degrees with the arm. I asked them if that was a viable option to explore. They said "you could try that, not sure if it will work. Man that worked like a champ.

They have a fully stocked hardware bin with anything you want. The table is drilled and tapped like peg board with 6m thread. I got some all thread and a few nuts to hold the part out in space. After About 30 mins I had a nearly perfect scan of the entire part, Almost ready for the printer. No merging, no hours, no BS just FUN.

They said it should take less than 1hr, including the learning curve to go in and manually clean up where the scanner could not reach into the holes. There's 4 places about the size of a dime and 6 places the size of a pea inside the holes and ports. Then they also said that after 4 hrs I was a pro with the scan arm! (Ha ha.)I told them "Jay Leno's buddy said to move the scanner like a spray gun, so that's what I did."

The scanner throws a laser line and a dot. Your distance variation puts the dot above or below the line. You follow the contours and keep the dot on the line by moving closer in on lows and further out on highs and around corners. Just follow the parts profile and you win.

No one has scanned a car part there yet. Mostly they see Cell phones scanned and print cases for them. Crap you can go buy at Walmart. A few bones. One guy scanned and printed an antique dresser drawer knob. He was missing one and the staff thought that was really neat and worth mentioning.


I can't get back there till next Tuesday.

I know, pics right??
Well my phone went dead. I'll have some Next week.

 

Just a dumb question, Why not just cast the part?

 

Not really a dumb question at all.
It's not my part and I need to return it, and very soon.
So the first thing that "I need" is a CAD file of the part that can be sent and down loaded.
The next thing I need a copy of the part. Plastic printed is good enough.
After that I can can do what I want and when I want, like make molds and castings.
If I can find a printer to make an actual usable metal part with a life expectancy beyond testing - I'll be good too.

 

That is cool!

So you mean they don't charge you anything, you just strolled in and asked to use it?

And way to think outside the box on your scan

 

Check it out.
http://thinkbox.case.edu/home
They have all sorts of stuff there.

Yes that's Pretty much the way it went.
However it's nearly impossible to find, a maze of one way city streets around a busy campus. There's a hidden entrance that you have to pass up, loop around the block and come back the other way. Don't miss it or you'll be another Hour to get back around. There are only 10 parking spots for the public and about 30 spots for special permits. The "CWR parking enforcement representative" is a very nice guy but he's gonna write his own mother a ticket for parking anywhere without a permit unless it's in those 10 spots. He will call a tow truck for anyone less than his mother.


Thank you!

 

We have this done locally guite often.We use it to reverse engineer Chinese built molds that have little or no data to make repairs or changes to.The outfit we use is a inspection house but will scan and provide solid model for pretty much anything.Most projects cost $1000 to $1500 to scan and provide solid model.Thats not bad considering the time you would have into manual inspection and try to draw for manufacture plus most design guys are looking for at least $100 and hour for their time.The equipment to do this is not cheap.We looked at upgrading our manual inspection arm with an arm with built in scanning head and they started around $60,000. for a lower accuracy unit.

 

Heres a address of another guy up here that does the same thing.Hes a car guy and is pretty good at the scanning deal too. www.aircorpsaviation.com/reverse-engineering. [email protected]

 

There's a lot of people out there with a lot of equipment, looking for stuff to do with it...

https://100kgarages.com/

 

Looking forward to seeing the conclusion of this cool project!

 

Working on this now.

Here's the first scan that's missing the bottom

 

There's a whole lot of this going on

 

Got the right file opened up and waiting for meshmixer software to get it imported

 

Still loading

 

Amazing stuff. Star Trek technology is useful for traditional hot rodding!
Also, you're getting some mad computer skills on top of that, even using the word ''fun'' to describe it.

 

• 2.76 hrs of loading.,,still not done.

45 mins ago I bet the guys it would take 30 more mins. He said 15 lol.


If you can read it.
There's 8 iterations.
I'm on #7 iteration.
The earlier pic says generating local models from 11 view sets.
The last pic says iteration #7 from 6 view sets.
Right now It just changed to 3 view sets. I have no idea how much longer but I'm guessing it goes down to 2 view sets, then 1 view set, then it's finished.


This bit isn't any fun, but I killed some time talking to the guy about the water jet on the next floor up

 

Here's a ball peen hammer they scanned and printed, and the table with a cameo of the part I'm working on.

 

We have a similar operation in the Detroit area. Just one of several locations nationwide.

http://www.techshop.ws/index.html

 

Finally get to start working on it.
15 mins before they close.


Here's a section view where the internal ports and wall thickness is massaged.


You can flip it inside out too. Wow

 

Last night, after 3 1/2 hrs of downloading and importing ,,,

It's occurred to me that when the file opened it was drastically reduced in size. Over all length is about 15-1/2 " but the 3D model was about 11 times smaller. I'm just about certain the scale was off in the settings and I bet that the reduction in scale is what took so long.

It became quite apparent when dialing in a 3/8" hole appeared to wipe out a big chunk of the end. Whoops.

Enlarging the reduced model by 10 times crashed the software. Went up in size in small increments and the software was ok.

So it doesn't make any sense to reduce the scan by 10 times then enlarge the reduction. It seems a lot got lost in that translation. I'm taking tomorrow afternoon off and going to try again.

 

The scanning is the easy part.The fixing and making a solid model that could be used for manufacture is time consuming and needs to be done correct so theres no holes or crazy surfaces.I admire your quest to learn whats involved.

 

I've cast parts using Silastic and resin, I once saw a fiberglass intake manifold on an engine being tested on an engine dyno, I made some dumbass remark like "that isn't gonna last" and the guy said it doesn't have too, just until we prove the design.

 

31Vicky it is pretty common to have scale issues when importing or exporting files. Happens a lot where I work do to the different soft wares used by customers. Should be able to re-scale it.

 

31Vic;
Thanks for the graphic stuff. You make it look easy. Just how computer literate does one need to be, to use this stuff? I'm guessing a level or two higher than me... .
Marcus...