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Fast, Accurate Reverse Engineering Created Improved Product
The Company
The blow mold
company, located near Jackson, MI, builds molds and machine components
to blow mold bottles, mostly one-half and one-gallon milk jugs and
smaller juice bottles. They also make the equipment to fabricate
plastic containers and sell tooling to manufacture beverage bottles,
bottle tops, and pop tops.
The Challenge
A customer of
the blow mold company wanted to make a new gallon jug but did not have
any digital data for it. The digital CAD data would allow the company
to create tool paths to cut the cavities in a solid plastic piece and
create new molds in two halves with the pin and bushing. As a first
step in obtaining a CAD file of the bottle, the blow mold company made a
casting from the existing mold which could then be scanned into a
digital format. Once the shape was digitized, the dimensions could be
altered and the jug improved before fabrication.
A manager at
the blow mold company had heard of GKS when he worked at another company
several years ago. He knew that laser scanning could create accurate
data files cost effectively and very quickly for parts such as the
gallon jug he was working with.
The Solution
From his
previous contact list the manager found an address for Larry Carlberg,
GKS Service Bureau Manager at the Minnesota office. GKS Inspection
Services, a division of Laser Design, headquartered in Minneapolis, MN,
has been a global provider of dimensional inspection, 3D laser scanning,
and terrestrial scanning services since 1981. With over 25 years in the
business, GKS metrologists have experience with all kinds of inspection
projects, using both laser and traditional measuring methods. As soon
as Carlberg received the message, he put the manager in touch with Jim
Andrews, Supervisor of Engineering and Laser Scanning Services in the
Plymouth, MI office since he was much closer geographically to the blow
mold company.
The manager sent Andrews the requirements of the project and Andrews
explained how to best gather the scan data to be used to create a 3D CAD
model that tool paths for the new jug cavities could then be based on.
The manager
was impressed with Andrews’
knowledge and
expertise
and sent the casting of the bottle he made with the old molds
for GKS to
scan.
Because the laser scanning system projects a line of laser light onto
surfaces while cameras continuously triangulate the changing distance
and profile of the laser line as it sweeps along, the problems of
missing data on an irregularly shaped surface is eliminated. The system
measures fine details and captures complex freeform geometry so that the
object can be exactly replicated. Laser scanners quickly measure
articles, picking up tens of thousands of points per second, and
generating huge numbers of data points without the need for templates or
fixtures.
GKS maintains
several Laser Design scanners so the appropriate size and resolution was
readily available in house. Ultimately, Andrews decided to use the
Laser
Design Surveyor 4060 scanning system with the RPS-450 laser which has an accuracy
of ± .001” (.0254 mm). He used the rotary stage to rotate the jug 360
degrees, collecting scan data from the entire surface in the machine's
native Surveyor Scan Control Software.
The scans were
completed in less than one hour. With a touch probe this project would
have taken many hours to collect 3D data from enough individual points
to define the shape of the jug. The millions of 3D coordinates in the
laser-generated point clouds were saved into Geomagic Studio for
preliminary processing which took only a half-hour. Subsequently the
data was read into SolidWorks for modeling which took another 4 hours.
“This 3D
laser
scanning
project for the blow mold company
was a
typical example of reverse engineering a product when no CAD data was
available,” commented Andrews. “We
at GKS
are
very
experienced in performing these types of scans for all sizes of part in
many industries as diverse as electronics to automotive, and in this
case, plastic blow mold fabrication. The time savings are enormous which
in turn saves companies other resources and money as well.”
The Results
The blow mold
company’s customer who needed the new mold’s tool paths commented that
the GKS results were the cleanest, straightest 3D model he’d every seen.
The manager concurred, “The data was smoothed so no additional
processing was needed. The files were ready to go when we got them back
from GKS.” The jugs quickly went into production and can now be found
in grocery stores everywhere.
Since this milk
jug project worked out so well, the blow mold company has sent GKS more
projects, for example a 5-gallon jug used to hold herbicides. The
container was not strong enough to withstand falls so it needed to be
modified to make it stronger. The scan data from GKS gave the blow mold
company the exact measurements so they could digitally change the radius
to give the structure more support.
The manager at
the blow mold company concluded, “We were glad to find GKS. We wouldn’t
have been able to do what we needed to do on the milk jug without them.
They were very timely with their service and very reasonably priced.
They gave us exactly what we needed to do the retooling. I have
confidence in GKS, its engineers, and the laser scanning process. They
should be proud of what they do.”
About GKS
GKS Inspection
Services has been a leading provider of dimensional inspection, 3D laser
scanning and terrestrial scanning services for over
25 years. The company’s Plymouth, MI lab (Detroit metro area) is
accredited by the A2LA for Mechanical Testing and Calibration and
features numerous CMM’s, vision systems, 3D laser scanners,
surface analyzers and other inspection equipment. GKS also has U.S.
offices in Minneapolis and Seattle and international locations in India,
Korea, China, Taiwan and the
Netherlands. The company’s metrologists and engineers are experienced
in the automotive, defense, electronics and many other manufacturing
industries.
More Information
For additional
information about how GKS Inspection Services can improve your
manufactured product, save you money and decrease your development time,
call Jim Andrews at 734-357-5213,
send email to
measure@gks.com, or visit GKS Inspection Services’ web site at
http://www.gks.com
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