Building accurate molds to produce seats for snowmobiles and other personal all-terrain and off-road vehicles has recently become easier for one Minnesota company.  With the use of laser scanners at GKS Inspection Services Inc.’s Service Bureau in Minneapolis, Minnesota, it is now possible to reverse engineer delicate components of the foam seats with a high degree of precision.

It is almost impossible to accurately measure foam seats using contact measurement tools such as coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) or height gauges because the probe depresses the foam and it takes too long to collect enough points to define complex contours. With laser scanning technology, millions of points are quickly collected to fully define the surface contours and deliver a surface model that is ready to create a toolpath to machine the mold.

The mold builder’s project engineer was pleased with the no contact approach to identifying surface contours.   “With laser scanning, there’s no need to ever touch the part, he said.  “Since there is no probe on a laser scanner that must physically touch the object, the problems of depressing soft objects and measuring small cavities are eliminated.”

GKS Inspection Services technicians use the company’s Surveyor 3D scanning system to scan parts at up to 15,000 points per second, creating an accurate, detailed 3D surface model that can easily be converted into a CNC program. The company specializes in scanning parts that are hard to accurately measure using traditional contact methods, such as plastic and rubber components, electrical discharge machining electrodes, extrusions, molds, dies and castings. The Surveyor systems’ work envelopes range in size from 2 to over 25 cubic feet and output files can be converted to all the most popular CAD formats.

“The first time we tried it, laser scanning helped us produce a more accurate mold than would have been possible using conventional methods while also saving a considerable amount of time,” said the engineer. “As a result, we have incorporated laser scanning as part of our normal business process whenever reverse engineering is required as part of a contract machining job. We have called on GKS Inspection Services to produce seats for a number of other snowmobiles and ATVs and the results have exceeded our expectations in every case. The service bureau approach fits our needs perfectly.”
 

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