I really liked the video and the way he explained the process. Loved the tip about using translucent/white PLA in the first few test prints and making notes with permanent markers.
Apparently the legality stuff is iffy according to YT comments and the tips in the video should not be construed as legal advice.
Firstly, never take legal advice from youtube or even here. And it’s very unlikely you would ever be caught doing it as long as you don’t sell the parts. Nor should you ever reverse engineer life threat level parts. Because you ain’t that smart or good. And if you are that smart, you know better than to do so.
There should be a law that if any part is discontinued the 3D CAD files should be in a public database.
Why stop there? All design files and code in the public domain and accessible in a public database.
One thing I think he missed, in my experience, is many of the critical dimensions may be in the user manual as a drawing. For example, the hole spacing for mounting the drives is standard so either the mount or the drive manufacturer might have called out the position and size. This would be way better than measuring, especially if they are using metric and you dimension in inches.
Great vid though.
Or find a 3d model of a drive and see how that matches up before you print anything.
If you are reverse engineering something like those used sleds, it’s unlikely you are going to have any kind of paper to give you those critical dimensions. As he said, those sleds were bought second hand. You ain’t ever going to get any kind of manual with them.
As far as measuring goes, It’s all G20/G21. I’m pretty sure the overwhelming vast majority of 3D printing people own a 6"/150mm digital caliper. Metric or US Customary numbers are available at a mere push of a button. And you should also own a 6"/150mm stainless steel scale. Evem Mitutoyo are less than $20. Though I prefer Shinwa brand myself because I find them easier to read with my old feeble eyes. Buy one or several. But to be honest, just about everything in the US these days is metric. We just don’t brag about it.
Those are the 2 basic tools you need at your desk when you are reverse engineering a part or design something the new the world has never seen. Add a pencil and a sketch pad and you are set.
Another tip, to save some plastic on prototypes: if you have a paper printer you can make a technical drawing in your CAD program, set scale to 1:1, print it out and compare (make sure to measure to check that the printed size is actually 1:1). If need be use scissors to cut out the profile.
This won’t take plastic shrinking into account, but in my experience it can remove the first few iterations at least. And it is way faster, and paper is less bad for the environment.
Well I could listen to this guy talk all day.
Is there a program somewhere between TinkerCAD and Fusion?
Perfect!
