Want to modify a complex shaped plastic part; need a good, inexpensive, scan/service

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Originally Posted by LambdaFF

Put here a sketch with key dimensions, I'll design it for you.

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Thanks for your offer, but I have imported a photo into sketchup, scaled it to the major dimensions, and attempted to trace the outlines.

I spent 3+ hours on it, including the enhancement pieces, and printed out the base part. Unfortunately the photo did not scale exactly and some of the features I missed were critical, so I'll be investing more time to get it right.

I was hoping to avoid this by getting a dimensionally accurate scan, but I guess that's hard to come by.

... Probably not that hard but definitely expensive.

My company has several such scanners and the handlers have become "experts" with time and experiments : they get requests from the Group to do things on a steady basis. It would be hard / costly for a small company to keep that kind of expertise.

As above, there's plenty of companies that can do it, but I'm not sure it's going to be cost effective assuming it's just for a personal project (you're talking an hours work using $100k of specialised equipment and software.)


Saying that: if you want to send in to Britain (and don't need me to return it :) ) then I'll do it for beer tokens.

Ok, getting the outer shape is easy, you're making this way to hard on your self. Do the same steps as above, but when you take your photo, put a ruler in the pic, say a 20mm length. Then when you import the photo into SU, draw a 20mm line, and scale the photo to match that line. Bingo, 100% scaling. Then use the arc tool to make the arcs, tracing the picture. If it's a number of arcs with different radii, then make multiple arcs, but only half the item. Then copy/rotate the half arc into a bigger one.

As mentioned. 30 minutes.

But to be honest, I'm guessing every dimension is not critical. There are probably some parts that are open to the air, so design a new one to fit the attachment points, and the rest just needs to be close.

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Originally Posted by Marm

Ok, getting the outer shape is easy, you're making this way to hard on your self. Do the same steps as above, but when you take your photo, put a ruler in the pic, say a 20mm length.

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Works too. Splines are cleaner. :-)

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Originally Posted by Marm

As mentioned. 30 minutes. .

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Yep.

You need a reference point, to know how long your scan/photo is.

Thanks for your offer J. If I can find the part for purchase in the UK, I'll have it shipped to you. So far, I've only found it in the US. It's a drip tray for a Frigidaire refrigerator water dispenser.

http://www.searspartsdirect.com/part...FUWVfgodLGcA7g

No Problem.

I can't see anywhere in the UK that does it (we don't really have fridge freezers.) There are plenty of places that will ship to the UK but want $25 or so for postage.

Hmm... at that cost, the time spent making one may not be worth it! That said, I'm still intrigued by reverse engineering it. A set of calipers should do you fine, and it looks like, to my eye, there only 3 radii to deal with , so you might be able to get it into SU, and use the arc tool to semi-easily create those radii. Oh well....

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Originally Posted by Marm

Hmm... at that cost, the time spent making one may not be worth it! That said, I'm still intrigued by reverse engineering it. A set of calipers should do you fine, and it looks like, to my eye, there only 3 radii to deal with , so you might be able to get it into SU, and use the arc tool to semi-easily create those radii. Oh well....

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Yeah, I'm well past the major radii. I spent a few more hours on it last night and am almost there. The key was those two tabs in the corners which hold it in place.

Of course the 5 hours I've already spent include the enhancements, not just the original part.

Seems like there may be a major market developing for inexpensive scanners that really work reliably.