Contrary to forward engineering, reverse engineering is to copy the existing product. It is illegal if the original owner applied for the patent. So it better to investigate the related patent record in your country before doing it.
3D scanner is the machine used to get the point cloud data of the product and then they will be imported into pro/Engineer or SolidWorks to reconstruct the 3D. It is very popular in the last 10 years in China because of the economic development boom. Anyway, it is an easy way to bring a product into market in a short time.
Scanning tolerance
Since scanning has the tolerance, it is very difficult to get the same result with the original part completely. It is always necessary to get all the related parts scanned even though some of them are not needed. The reason is to ensure a good assembly.
Three ways to make the prototype
3D printing
3D printing is mature technology in recent years, and the printing quality is getting better and better. Printing pricing is based on the weight, so it is economical for the lightweight parts. Most importantly, process is very fast, normally you can get it in a few hours.
CNC machining or prototyping
CNC prototyping is much more expensive than 3D printing, and with no doubt of the better quality. Because it is machined, tolerance can be controlled into as low as ±0.05mm. Various feasible post-treatment, such as silk screen printing, oil painting, polishing etc. are all available. It is widely used if you want to show your product to your end customer before putting it into the market. It can also be used as the small volume pilot run before mass production.
Vacuum casting
The process is :
- Make a CNC or 3D printing prototype firstly and then put it into a special soft material to form a cavity.
- Split it into two parts, core and cavity, similar to the mold, right? They are indeed a simple mold!
- Pour the special prototyping raw materiel from the gate to get the part.
It is very easy, right? But this simple mold has a very short lifespan, 10 shots at most, but it is a good choice if you need 10 or dozens quantity. Be aware of another point, part quality will not be the same as the injection ones, definitely.
Can we modify the drawing after scanning?
BDM Ltd. Provide you the best service before production. Our experienced product engineers will cooperate with you to revise the drawing to meet with your own idea fast and efficiently. We are devoted to give you the best design solutions to save your design time.
Product design
WE DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURE!
BDM Ltd. is a design and manufacture company, Design for manufacture is our mission to collaborate with customers together with our experienced ID designers and mechanical engineers to bring the product into market in a short time.
- Quick, fast feedback
- Gorgeous appearance design
- Feasible mechanical structure
- Practical molding DFM suggestions
- One-stop CNC prototyping
Mechanical design
- PCB stacking
- 3D modeling in SolidWorks
- Mechanical motion simulation
MoldFlow analysis
MoldFlow analysis helps to determine the ideal combination of part geometry, material, molding design, and processing conditions that will produce quality finished parts.
BDM Ltd. provides you the optimum injection solutions by means of MoldFlow analysis to meet your strict requirements, especially for the parts with potential bending issues or critical geometry tolerances, therefore minimizing the injection risk and save the cost, as well as reducing the lead-time.
MOLD DESIGN
We provide the professional 2D assembly design for export molds, compatible with HASCO, DME, or LKM standard. Furthermore, our over 10 years’ experienced engineers can always provide you the fast, high efficiency design, whatever it is two shot molding , insert molding , overmolding or IMD & IML molding. Most noteworthy, under the powerful Auto-CAD plug-in, molding design time can be shorten to hours.
Not only 2D design is done with high efficiency, but also 3D design is done super fast. BDM use the powerful molding Plug-ins, such as Yanxiu and Hubo. All the standard design processes have been condensed into intelligent commands, therefore reduce the design time to hours. Mold base and all the other mold components can be easily created with just one-click. All the parameters can be adjusted and all the layers have been categorized intelligently.