As you may imagine, scanning three-dimensional objects can be quite a challenge if you don’t have the right technology. However, a 3D scanning service can make it quite simple and straightforward, especially if you use the latest equipment available. However, scanning items that are very small is still challenging. You need the most advanced equipment to make this possible in order to create a CAD model or perform a high level inspection of a specific part.
EMS recently made this possible. They were approached by an orthopedic manufacturing company that needed to make changes on very tiny components. These components were made without a CAD model so it would have been next to impossible now to try to manually measure and re-create the parts by hand since they are so tiny. EMS provided a quick and solid solution, however, by using the Steinbichler Comet L3D – 5 megapixel 3D scanner. This device uses six different lenses that range from an 800 mm field of view to a 45 mm field of view. This way, you could select which lens was most suited for the task at hand. Every lens had the same number of target points, up to 5 million, and if the field of view is very tiny, this means there were more points in a smaller space. This is perfect for a very detailed view of extremely tiny objects. To be specific, they were capturing data at 8.018 mm space. That’s pretty impressive any 3D scanning service.
This 3D scanning service does more than just capture a lot of information at a very small level. It can also provide extremely good accuracy at .02 mm. The parts being scanned were so small that they couldn’t be reverse engineered or even manually inspected, so with 3D scanning it was possible to create a high-resolution image that was accurate enough to create models from.
Figuring out how to hold the object in place during the scan was another obstacle EMS had to face. Since the object was so small, they couldn’t use the normal fixtures or armatures. They had to come up with a new method. They ended up using magnets to hold the object in place so they could use their 3D scanning service to capture data from all angles. It was rather simple but very effective and prevented any potential issues with blocking the view.
The orthopedic manufacturing company was pleased with the results, since they didn’t have to worry about manually modeling the small part. They had nothing on the computer to go off of since the original design was made without a CAD. A 3D scanning service was their best bet for capturing all the details of this part so they could make a an accurate CAD model and then use that to make design changes for the new version. This process saved the orthopedic company a considerable amount time and allowed them to move forward with the redesign much faster than they would have otherwise.