[amjny]

I need some help with a machine that would help my business, however I don't have a clear idea what would work. However I come with props and examples..


I make sporting goods and I get many requests to copy an existing model for customers. Now, I'm using painters tape, and calipers to mark the dimensions, calculate the radius and enter into my lathes software.


I came across a video of an implementation that I want to copy. I provide link to a video below. Its a custom build that uses a laser to record dimensions of a product, which is recorded in a cad file format, that a lathe can turn.


I'm looking for a cost efficient way to bring this about

• Would it be possible to use a desktop cnc router table that 12x36x3-4" height clearance.
• This unit will be outfitted with an interchangeable laser head(s) that scan bats and laser engrave bats.
• Or a smaller table 3x36x3-4" for a single bat, without the laser engrave option.

Or another possibility is to mount scan head to my machines carriage ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlKn49Ld178 ) and take dimension directly, similar to the video below..


https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ajo22thXj77-nZ5iBDKaBwZWgqlW2g this is a video file.



https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ajo22thXj77-nZ5kFzWgXNPyQig3QA this is a picture of the output. You will notice the measurements on the right side.



Any advice or pointer in the right direction will be helpful.. Thanks.

[awerby]

Probably the most cost-effective way to go about this would be to use a tracer lathe. Here's an example: https://www.acetool.com/Vega-D-36-Pr...SABEgLxGfD_BwE

It wouldn't record the bat for future use, though; for that you'd need a scanner.

[Jim Dawson]

I looked into doing this very thing for a potential customer a couple of years ago. I looked at a number of different methods; laser scanner, laser mic, mechanical probe, vision system.

Two methods made the most sense:
1) A mechanical probe, built around a linear encoder. Not the best because of the sharp angle at the knob / grip interface, but doable. Would interface directly with some CNC control programs.
2) Vision system, using a camera. This actually low cost and pretty simple. A webcam would work, but an inexpensive industrial camera would be better. Not difficult to calibrate and accurate to about 0.1 mm or better. Would require some special software, but pretty simple stuff on modern development platforms. I designed and built vision measuring systems 20 years ago for the wood product industry, a number of them are still in use today.

You just capture the data points about every 0.1mm over the length of the bat, then connect the dots to generate the profile. Then you can save the file as a dxf or convert the data points directly to G-code.

[Switcher]

I've seen laser range finders on ebay for less than $10 and free shipping. These are mostly for measuring longer distances like rooms in buildings but they might still have something useful with better accuracy, you would just have to sift through a lot of pages on ebay, there's so many. Search ebay for "laser tape measure".

If you could find a cheap laser on ebay that's accurate it would be faster than manually using calipers for a long part like the baseball bat in the video. Still a lot of work recording the data. It would be interesting If you could find a laser range finder that could export the data, even If it cost a little more.

[awerby]

I don't think a cheap laser range-finder would be accurate enough; most of them are made for sports use, and are accurate to about a yard, plus or minus. If you wanted to go more high-tech, the next step up would be to use a digitizing arm, which is accurate to about a hundredth of an inch. For simple parts like your baseball bat, you'd create a curve by picking points a half-inch or so apart, and use that to write a program your CNC lathe could execute. Here's a relatively inexpensive one: MicroScribe Pricing