Reverse engineering means to disassemble, examine, or analyze in detail (as a product or device) to discover the concepts involved in manufacturing, usually in order to produce something similar. This is an important tool in today’s world, where everything must be understood about a product in order to make the product stronger, lighter, and faster to machine. In this case Engman-Taylor was asked to reverse engineer an obsolete product.
The product is a center cap for exotic carbon fiber wheels used on a C5 Corvette. These caps were being stolen, broken or lost. Since the caps were no longer available this started as a simple replacement part. During the design and test phase revisions were made in order to strengthen the cap and make removal more difficult. Engman-Taylor was able to take this part, reverse engineer it, make a 3D model on CAD, improve the design and then 3D Print the part as a final product.
The finished part was printed on Engman-Taylor’s Multi Jet Printer. The printer will slice an .stl file, produced from the CAD software, printing in layers down to 16 microns. This allows for fine detail and high accuracy. Parts are printed with two materials, the plastic and a supporting wax. If needed we can print functional moving parts, like hinges and bearings.
Several test version were printed in a variety of materials. Visijet X material, which is an ABS like plastic, did not provide enough flexibility. The final part was printed using Visijet Black which allowed for flexibility of the part to be able to clip into the wheel. Printing in black eliminated further finishing requirements by the customer.
Call Engman-Taylor today to have your part reverse engineered! 262-255-9300
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