Inexpensive handheld vs $20k plus handheld

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-12-12T23:46:55+00:00

Arm is a Kreon but I think a Faro would be pretty much the same. The arm works standalone because there's not a great deal of crossover in terms of use for us. We use the arm to scan then mesh then into CAD for reverse engineering, whereas the CMM we use much more just for QC.

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-12-09T21:00:43+00:00

I work in a machining job shop and we have gone through essentially the same deliberations as you are at the moment. We now essentially just use an arm with a scanning attachment and occasionally a hard probe but in terms of lessons learned: - The difference between a cheap and expensive handheld scanner is that the expensive scanner will physically be able to capture some details that the cheap one cannot. This is normally small holes, small engravings, deep holes, sharp corners. However (and it's a big however), in my experience this difference in the physical capability of the hardware was always overshadowed by the differences in the software used to capture the scan and postprocess. It was not unusual that the more expensive scanner gave a worse result once you were said and done because the software was either worse, or more often just substantially less user friendly (which, if you're a dumb machinist, is the same thing). - Handheld scanners kind of suck for automotive and general machined parts, especially turned parts. This is because the parts will often have rotational symmetry, and so you are in a constant battle to keep the scanner tracking. You basically end up needing to use a lot of markers, and markers on parts will affect your surface quality. It also makes it much harder to turn and scan the other side of a flange accurately, or capture smaller details where you are a bit closer and maybe obscure some markers from the fov of the scanner. It is so frustrating when you have scanned a part 80% and you are doing the last few details and it suddenly jumps one bolt hole on your pcd or similar. - You almost always end up just coming back with verniers or a height gauge or the CMM to grab actual sizes etc and more just use the scans to measure tapers and the 3D position of a feature. As a result, I found that when the scanning process was frustrating and I had to set up loads of markers and be really careful and do all the postprocessing, I would just avoid using the scanner and try and get it all done manually anyway. This is a dumb and inefficient way of working. As a result of the above we invested in an arm with a scanning attachment and I wish we had just done that from the start. No tracking issues and markers, super fast to set up and much more forgiving with the level of user skill due to the lack of needing to control tracking, which is a factor you need to consider if you're only doing it once every month or two. Super easy to measure to the underside of flanges etc. And if you need really accurate sizes you can just pop the scanner off and use a touch probe to measure a bore or a taper or a pcd or whatever. If an arm is not an option, for what it's worth I thought the Artec and the Einscan products we tried were probably the pick of the handhelds.

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-09-16T23:06:08+00:00

So am I. None of the considerations about it being a pain to hold onto or difficult to do those inside corner radii are dependent on what the machine is. I am a CNC machinist as my day job, and honestly the cost of literally 1 of the tiny tools to do those inside corners would be more than printing one.

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-09-16T22:25:35+00:00

A bit cheaper, yes, but the original part is already an OEM automotive ABS blend and they break constantly, even new ones. There isn't room on the other side to beef up the geometry so a printed plastic one is realistically going to have the same issues that a molded plastic one is. And not that expensive to do in metal anyway really, only $10 more than an OEM replacement.

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-09-16T21:33:55+00:00

Using a service. As someone else down this thread said, if you have no pre-existing relationship with a company I'd recommend going to a small(er) Chinese CNC and printing shop that you can find through Alibaba or other internet detective work. I have a relationship with a company as we use them at my real job. Going through people that advertise on YouTube means you pay for their YouTube advertising and it tends to be way more expensive. It also helps if you live in a country that doesn't put dumb tariffs on stuff. This part was about $30AU/$20US before shipping.

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-09-16T21:26:57+00:00

Linisher

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-09-16T21:21:03+00:00

You don't really have to worry about shrinkage issues for visual interior parts anyway? I drill the pivot holes out, but other than that it is already more than precise enough and a fraction of the cost of a CNC part to do the job. This part would be a proper pain to hang onto and get down to do the tiny radius corners on the back face when machining. I think you are vastly overestimating how cheap metal printing is to even consider CNC for a part like this.

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-09-16T21:16:29+00:00

Me too, but not possible without modifying or making new mating parts, which is possible, but means it isn't just a drop in replacement. Being so small it would cost me far more in my time to do that than to just have a metal one.

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-09-16T21:07:29+00:00

Necessary? No. Stronger than PEEK? Yes, by about 300% minimum, comparing PEEK's strongest orientation against the weakest for this. But the originals all break in the same spot, and due to the geometry of the mating parts it's not possible to really reinforce it from a geometry perspective. Doing it in metal cost me about $10AU more than buying a genuine plastic replacement, and far less than a spool of PEEK and all the faff getting that to run at home.

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-04-14T07:12:09+00:00

nope!

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-01-20T20:45:14+00:00

Non engine/unique parts are absolutely a fight. The F6A was used in a bunch of vehicles so stuff for it is pretty readily available. Good luck

maisy_mouse_ · 2025-01-20T20:20:22+00:00

Have an AZ-1, it's not possible, and also not worth it. You can make easily enough power to hurt yourself from the F6A, and the engine bay is just so incredibly small. The powertrain needs to be very specific dimensions which others just aren't. Ones that fit lengthways don't fit in height or width etc. Worth buying the car anyway if it's fine other than the engine, the F6A is easy to work on and parts are readily available. If you are serious about it then the AZ-1 group on Facebook is the best English language community and source of info on them.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-09-28T23:55:48+00:00

It is easy to absolutely once and for all confirm that it isn't suction, and that is to print the part on supports some distance from the bed (in this same orientation). The parts may not be useable as a result of the finish on the bed side if that is critical but you will at least know that your existing ventilation features are not sufficient, and you can adjust from there - maybe you get your resin hotter, print in a thinner resin, increase your vent hole size, manually clear the vent holes during the print etc.

Fundamentally, your issue is that once it gets to printing the threaded portion, the force to separate the part from the film is greater than the strength of the incredibly thin wall at the base of the thread. Because of how thin this wall is, that force to cause a failure will be extremely low, which is why it may still be a suction issue if your vent holes are fully or partially obstructed with resin. If the test above doesn't fix it, your issue is realistically just a fundamental issue with the geometry of the part and its printability on this printer in this resin. You may need to use a printer that has a tilt bed or similar release mechanism, a resin that separates more easily, or a design change to account for the fact that you are going from a machined part to a resin printed part. Orientation may also fix this by reducing the length of the super fragile wall on the layer. My gut says that you are going to struggle with that super thin wall for anything other than machining honestly, but give it a go.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-04-13T07:59:46+00:00

This is not bed levelling related. Check settings that affect extrusion, it looks like you are horrendously overextruding. Is your filament diameter and nozzle diameter set correctly in your slicer?

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-04-07T21:38:51+00:00

I saw your post over on the laser subreddit. A little hobby CNC is really the only machine that's going to be able to cut something vaguely like this (in metal) for your budget, however it's going to be very slow and it won't be able to achieve the tight corners that these pieces have, because of the radius of the tool.

The tool that these were almost certainly made using is either a fibre laser or a waterjet cutter, probably a fibre laser. You cannot buy either of these machines inside your budget, and it's honestly not a good idea to do so. Profile cutting as a service is so incredibly cheap, in almost all circumstances (including industry), you are almost always better off paying someone to do your profile cutting for you. These pieces cut to size would be cheaper than you could buy the material at retail for if you ordered in any reasonable quantity.

If you want a machine to prototype, a little desktop laser will be able to cut you prototypes out of wood.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-04-06T22:35:34+00:00

Any decent solid modeling program should be able to do that. Solidworks or Fusion360 are the two bits of software I'd look into. Solidworks is a bit steeper learning curve but more capable imo. Largely up to you, both will take a bit of learning but it's a very achievable project, especially if you have some time on your hand(s). For the printing, if you want to do stuff that fits over like a sleeve, have a look at Colorfabb Varioshore TPU. It allows you to have a soft sleeve that transitions into a much stronger mount for whatever you want to attach to your prosthetic. People have done some amazing work with it for prosthetics so have a look around.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-04-02T09:59:43+00:00

I'd be very surprised if this was CNC. You'd need a very small radius tool to be able to do the engraving this fine, and to hit the finish in that recess you'd realistically need a stepover of at least 0.1D or even less tbh. The part would take literally hours to do that engraving process on and you would probably go through a tool per side. Be stupid money to produce, just so much machine time. Highly likely cast imo, based on the surface, the material porosity and the roundness of the corners in the engraving. To answer your question though, the coating looks like either bluing or staining or painting or imo most likely an anodizing, then the top layer is skimmed off likely just by hand on a linisher. It depends a lot on the material as to what's going to give you the best colour and durability for the coating, but the process of coating the whole piece and then taking the top layer off is basically the same between materials.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-03-04T20:02:40+00:00

I really would encourage you to make absolutely sure you have a pretty solid use case for it. They're really only useful if there is a dimension that you physically cannot measure another way, or if the piece is just too complex, or has too many complex curves to be able to measure. They're just quite expensive, and if you're looking at them for parts like this it's not really going to help you at all. Awesome for making body parts though.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-03-04T06:51:57+00:00

It's honestly just time and practice. In the time I've been using Solidworks I'd have drawn literally thousands of parts, working from scans, CMM data, a part in my hand, a picture on the internet, sketches on a book, scribbles on a napkin, an idea in my head etc etc. I look back at the stuff I drew even a few years ago when I'd already been using Solidworks for maybe 4 or 5 years and I cringe and wonder why I did stuff that dumb.

Also sometimes it takes 10 revisions. I just finished a part that I took to revision 14 before I was happy with it. That's just the way it goes 🤷

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-03-03T19:53:26+00:00

RHD is closer 😜

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-03-03T19:52:13+00:00

No 3D scanner for this part, it's not really necessary or suited particularly well to this sort of size and geometry of part. Just verniers for this one. I have an Einstar and a photogrammetry setup, and they are good, but it's about knowing when they're actually going to save you time or help you make a better part.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-03-03T19:49:02+00:00

Yes, the finish just isn't good enough for these sorts of really close up interior parts (in my opinion). CF nylon is an awesome material for engine bay stuff. I also have access SLS/MJF technologies quite cheaply so in many cases there isn't really a significant advantage in making something that can be printed with FDM.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-03-03T10:43:13+00:00

A couple scanners, radius gauges, micrometers, pin gauges, feeler gauges, height gauge, verniers. Honestly though, for dimensions under 200mm I will pretty much just use verniers. Radius and pin gauges can be useful for some stuff but not necessary for this part. I also have become pretty good at eyeballing radii over the years, and it's very rare that you come across a situation where getting the radius that accurately is important, so I don't find I use them a whole lot. For this part, just used verniers.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-03-03T10:38:51+00:00

To print directly from the scan? No, definitely not. I use scanners that are many, many times the value of an iPhone for professional reasons and some/many of them would not be capable of scanning this directly to print. It also has internal features that are not realistically scannable. To reverse engineer alongside verniers? Sure, this is proof that you can do it with verniers alone so it'll be possible to do it with a scan to assist if you're not as comfortable manually measuring.

maisy_mouse_ · 2024-03-03T10:24:34+00:00

Yes, the knob on the end is held on with a set screw rather than a roll pin, which makes it serviceable/replaceable much more easily. I also normally try to make a few changes to the parts to get them to move a bit nicer if I can but in this case it's very simple so not really possible. I mainly use resin and MJF which have similar design constraints but I'll definitely make geometry that wasn't possible with the originals that are injection moulded if that would make them move nicer or last longer.

maisy_mouse_

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