3D scanning and aluminium machining

[Chicken_Satay]

Honda is no longer selling quickshifters or parts of it for the most recent VFR 800. Unfortunately, the foot gear lever that is part of the Honda quickshifter on my VFR snapped when the bike went over.

After thinking about welding etc, I then thought it may be easiest to take the parts to an engineering firm for scanning and then they could machine a new part out of aluminium.

Has anybody ever done this before? Do you have any recommendations? Does it work/is it practical and affordable to do this?

[Rubin215]

A decent welder could probably do it quite cheaply, the other alternative is ebay and get a used one.

Machining for individual parts tends to be fairly expensive unless you can get an enthusiast who does it for fun.

My local semi-retired engineer, "Twenty-quid Sid", has done the most amazing work for people over the years just for the challenge and also to keep his hand in.

[SV_WDC]

What about 3D printing?

[MrGman]

Have a look on eBay, there are probably 10’s of vfrs of all ages being broken.
If not search google for motorcycle breakers and have a ring around, it’ll be a lot easier.

[Chicken_Satay]

Unfortunately there aren't many of these parts around. I've been scouring Ebay and the wider internet for the last couple of weeks and there's absolutely nothing coming up whatsoever.

[thepritch]

You could machine from scan, if you could get a decent quality cloud scan from a decent part. But I can’t see it being cheap. That said, as another poster mentioned above, you might find a machine shop willing to mill a part if they have downtime they’re trying to fill etc.

If the scan is poor, it could become a wasteful exercise, or require a few hours of CAD to build a proper 3D model around the scan to mill from. Plus , I assume it interfaces with other parts so tolerances in areas need to be really good. For a decent shop doing a pro style job I’d expect a high 3 figure, possibly 4 figure bill for machining, finishing, plus more for scanning.(this is gut feel, I don’t actually know the dimensions of the part).

Love the idea of projects like this, but often costs rack up quickly and I don’t know how deep your pockets are.

[Drawweight]

Have you found the part number and checked if it was fitted to a different model of bike?

You might be lucky.

[ARHarh]

thepritch said:

You could machine from scan, if you could get a decent quality cloud scan from a decent part. But I can’t see it being cheap. That said, as another poster mentioned above, you might find a machine shop willing to mill a part if they have downtime they’re trying to fill etc.

If the scan is poor, it could become a wasteful exercise, or require a few hours of CAD to build a proper 3D model around the scan to mill from. Plus , I assume it interfaces with other parts so tolerances in areas need to be really good. For a decent shop doing a pro style job I’d expect a high 3 figure, possibly 4 figure bill for machining, finishing, plus more for scanning.(this is gut feel, I don’t actually know the dimensions of the part).

Love the idea of projects like this, but often costs rack up quickly and I don’t know how deep your pockets are.

Just throwing this out there having performed these tasks before. Depending on how complex the part is, you are going to be in for.

2 or more hours to scan the part and sort the cloud data out.
2 hours to program and machine the part.

And I would guess a machine shop equipt to perform these tasks are going to be charging best part of £100 an hour.

These sorts of projects always sound good but the reality is unless you are thinking of going into production the costs will be prohibitive.

[Chicken_Satay]

Drawweight said:

Have you found the part number and checked if it was fitted to a different model of bike?

You might be lucky.

Even the main Honda dealer has acknowledged the lack of availability of the part. It was them who suggested getting the old part welded

[Chicken_Satay]

ARHarh said:

These sorts of projects always sound good but the reality is unless you are thinking of going into production the costs will be prohibitive.

It seems like the next step, given the lack of experience or concrete info from users here, will be to contact and investigate the query with a few firms that specialise in this area. I assumed the technology had matured and, therefore, the accessability and cost of this process would have been more palatable.

[ARHarh]

The technology is good and easily accessible these days, but scanning only produces a series of points. these then need to be turned into surfaces to be able to program machines to produce the part. That is the tricky bit. You can probably just press a button and get 98% of the way there. But as ever it's the last coupe of percent that takes the time to get right.

[Easternlight]

Chicken_Satay said:

ARHarh said:

These sorts of projects always sound good but the reality is unless you are thinking of going into production the costs will be prohibitive.

It seems like the next step, given the lack of experience or concrete info from users here, will be to contact and investigate the query with a few firms that specialise in this area. I assumed the technology had matured and, therefore, the accessability and cost of this process would have been more palatable.

Where I work we do 3D machining but only from CAD models and I can assure you it's going to be very expensive!
I would suggest fabrication would be a better affordable if not as pretty option.

[thepritch]

Chicken_Satay said:

It seems like the next step, given the lack of experience or concrete info from users here, will be to contact and investigate the query with a few firms that specialise in this area. I assumed the technology had matured and, therefore, the accessability and cost of this process would have been more palatable.

I’d agree, It might be worth asking as cost p/h vary from shop to shop. I have considerable experience in the processes (we develop car exteriors and interiors) , and could advise on how to get from A to B but not so much the exact costs. Our clients generally handle the billing for any physical properties that are made.

Processes are actually very mature and robust, and they’re continually improving. But producing a facsimile of an existing part is still ‘capture, convert, setup, program, and machine, finish and deliver. Despite automation there is a fair amount of human input needed and equipment remains a big overhead (eg one seat of CAD software we use is £1000 p/m!)

If you find costs, please post back here, and good luck

[bern]

As others have said scanning isn't the silver bullet it can appear to be when you're trying to reverse engineer something.

A advanced machine shop would rather work from a good quality 3d model, a 'Fred in a shed' type place would work from a engineering drawing, so this may be an option? Although producing a quality engineering drawing is a skill in itself.

Have you got a pic of the part in question?

[airsafari87]

OP post up a photo of the part in question. I may be able to assist in the 3D modelling of the part and machining.

[Drawweight]

I’d be looking to get it welded before going to the expense of having a new one custom made. A reputable machine shop would tell you if it’s possible or not.

It may be possible to reinforce the break point to give you further peace of mind.

That’s the first route I’d even think about.

[Caddyshack]

SV_WDC said:

What about 3D printing?

Most 3d printing would not be strong enough for repeated use on a gear selector, there are some high end materials but I bet that would be very expensive.

[ARHarh]

Caddyshack said:

SV_WDC said:

What about 3D printing?

Most 3d printing would not be strong enough for repeated use on a gear selector, there are some high end materials but I bet that would be very expensive.

3d Printing being a layered process, in as much as adding a layer to the existing layer tends to allow the parts to fracture between these layers, therefore there is very little resistance to fatigue.

All these processes have their time and place but the reality is unless you are developing for mass productions the costs are prohibitive. far too much is written about these sorts of tech taking over from traditional forms of manufacture, but the reality is often very different.

The part the OP wants is probably some kind of lever between set points. a quick measure of the original and some simple machining will probably have the item sorted. But until we see a photo its difficult to advise.

[srob]

bern said:

As others have said scanning isn't the silver bullet it can appear to be when you're trying to reverse engineer something.

A advanced machine shop would rather work from a good quality 3d model, a 'Fred in a shed' type place would work from a engineering drawing, so this may be an option? Although producing a quality engineering drawing is a skill in itself.

Have you got a pic of the part in question?

This. We scan automotive components a lot at work, some for reverse engineering and some for measuring.

A good scanner with appropriate software will now spit out an stl file which can be machined or 3D printed from. But it’ll still need a fair bit of cleaning up and also potentially modifying radii etc and they tend to ‘bridge’ depending on the point density.

Generally scans are used as a basis for generating a CAD model from. If it’s something like a basic form tool or similar you can get away with working straight from a scan but generally it’ll need work.

Personally I’d just take the bit to a good machine shop and say you want something the same. They’ll normally have their own CAD software they’ll use if they only have drawings to program the CNC machines from so they’ll probably be able to knock up a workable model quicker and way cheaper than scanning.

[Tango13]

Depending on what needs to be made the potential elephant in the room is cutting of any splines, the options would be an expensive press broaching tool, an expensive wobble broaching tool or finding someone with one of the above and paying them to do it which as a 1 off will be expensive...

Are there any after market rearset kits available?