Reverse Engineering Spare Parts

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by nicco

Does anyone have any other suggestions for parts they'd like me to have a crack at?

There could be a market for Jack point Covers.

One of our NZ members lost a Jack point cover from his B series GT, price over there was $300 EnZed shekels! One was sourced from OZ at less than half that price, but still over the top pricing.

Compared to what you've done above you should be able to knock one of these up during your lunch break

[PridenJoy]

Great work. I sell quite a few AU parts and the second most wanted part after the high series climate control units is the very part you're trying to make as most people who attempt to remove them end up snapping one or more parts in the rear of it.

And due to the same brittleness that causes the above, the units also crack badly over time (which eventually renders them useless), screw mounting points perish and once the globes die, it's impossible finding new ones (and if you do, there's a good chance you'll snap something trying to replace them )

If you do make them in bulk, and are tried and tested, i have no doubt there will be a reasonable size market depending on price. In fact I'm happy to negotiate a deal on being an agent and supplier for the new units.

[nicco]

Hi everyone, so apparently the best part of a year has snuck past since I first posted this stuff. It's been a big year though; new job, bought a block of land, started building a house and got engaged! Anyway, that's enough of the excuses for not getting this finished. Ha ha.

So I finally decided that it was time to get stuck back into this in earnest. The problems last time with the mould were all around how to the cut lines between the two halves of the mould. I initially used clay on one side of the model to plug all the holes, then removed the clay for the second half. Problem was that in getting the clay out I dislodged the model which I (apparently) couldn't get in properly.

To get around it this time, I decided to just 3D print each side of the model separately with all the holes plugged. This was a lot of modelling work because Fusion 360 struggled to interpolate the cut lines. I think using more professional type software there are some short cuts, but for using Fusion I pretty much just had to go and manually plug each hole from each side of the model.

I ended up printing four components; 2 each for top and bottom - they're in two parts purely due to print bed size on the printer.


From there I took a mould of the inside of the plug on the original bracket again to make sure the pins are perfectly located.



Then pour the silicone moulds for the two halves. Orange is the half I chose as the top, hence all the little breathers. I added way more breathers than last time and went from 1 to 4 fill points, which made a massive difference.



Then it was time to give it another crack at casting. Once again, not using any embedded circuit as I am really just testing for fit at this stage.

I had quite a lot of leakage through the mould part line - the resin manufacturer has given me a few tips to reduce this in future. Unfortunately the loss of resin meant one or two details didn't pick up properly - but nothing that was mega critical



Then I got a bit excited and tried to remove it from the mould too early... meaning it's a touch wonky now But once again, nothing that was critical.

Then with a bit of clean up of flashing and a few other little bits and pieces I could start fitting up parts to the bracket



Then put it into the facia and back into the car.



Whoo hoo!! Stoked.

So the next steps from here are to get the new bottles of resin that I've ordered, then to cut the copper into tracks for the a/c, demister and light circuits, then to have another go at casting a final component (and I won't rush to get it out of the mould this time, ha ha)


New vs. old:


And PridenJoy, sorry I never saw your message until now. I'll see how this next one goes

Thanks all. Have a good Easter
Nic.