What scanners are you interested in using/trying and for what sort of parts/areas on your car? 🔥 Your comprehensive guide to 3D scanning, $50 USD off: hpcdmy.co/scanaway
I have an Einstar Shining3d, which is pretty impressive (you can find some scans I've made of Suzuki Cappuccino parts on Grabcad). But it's highly dependent on how feature-dense the object is. It hates scanning shiny flat surfaces, like body panels, and does a terrible job with long skinny parts, like a sway bar. Truth be told, I've never heard of a scanner that handles body panels well and could be classified as 'affordable'. The other downside is it requires some serious computing power to run the software. 32GB of RAM is woefully inadequate for larger scans. And it doesn't run on Mac. That limits the usefulness, since it's impractical to disassemble my desktop computer and haul it down to the garage every time I want to scan parts of my car.
We have a bit of a 'review' video coming out next week that will include the Einstar. Just finishing off the captions then it's ready to roll =) I think out of 4-5 scanners, there was only 1 that Connor was really unhappy with, all the rest just had pros and cons in capabilities vs price - Taz.
Yeah, it's a really exciting time now that there's so many scanners under the $1000 price point that are actually usable for automotive projects. One tip I'll offer is, when trying to recreate a part in Fusion360, usually there's way too many polygons to convert to a parametric model, but even if you can't use the mesh directly, it's invaluable to overlay over your design to check your work. Also, if you're working with a metal part that was machined, the person who designed the part probably used sensible numbers through most of it. The scanner doesn't have perfect resolution. That janky 29.78mm circle you measured on the mesh is probably 30mm. The bolts that are 100.17mm apart? They're probably exactly 100mm in the manufacturer's design. I try to double check with calipers to be sure, but that's true way more often than not.
Yes that's all covered in various course material and even some of our free content. Some of those basics that you don't know till you know but are all part of starting out. The little things all add up to make a big difference for sure and thanks for mentioning it for others to scroll past and benefit from if they're not aware already themselves. Einstar has a Mac version of their software now too btw. Probably no good to you right now but when you're next looking to replace your PC/laptop you will have that option. Hope you enjoy the course if you decide to dive into it. Remember there's a 60-day refund policy so win win, you either take it, find you are already up to speed on things and gain more confidence or you go through and learn some new valuable information and find value in having it - Taz. www.hpacademy.com/courses/practical-3d-scanning/
What scanners are you interested in using/trying and for what sort of parts/areas on your car?
🔥 Your comprehensive guide to 3D scanning, $50 USD off: hpcdmy.co/scanaway
I have an Einstar Shining3d, which is pretty impressive (you can find some scans I've made of Suzuki Cappuccino parts on Grabcad). But it's highly dependent on how feature-dense the object is. It hates scanning shiny flat surfaces, like body panels, and does a terrible job with long skinny parts, like a sway bar. Truth be told, I've never heard of a scanner that handles body panels well and could be classified as 'affordable'. The other downside is it requires some serious computing power to run the software. 32GB of RAM is woefully inadequate for larger scans. And it doesn't run on Mac. That limits the usefulness, since it's impractical to disassemble my desktop computer and haul it down to the garage every time I want to scan parts of my car.
We have a bit of a 'review' video coming out next week that will include the Einstar. Just finishing off the captions then it's ready to roll =)
I think out of 4-5 scanners, there was only 1 that Connor was really unhappy with, all the rest just had pros and cons in capabilities vs price - Taz.
Yeah, it's a really exciting time now that there's so many scanners under the $1000 price point that are actually usable for automotive projects.
One tip I'll offer is, when trying to recreate a part in Fusion360, usually there's way too many polygons to convert to a parametric model, but even if you can't use the mesh directly, it's invaluable to overlay over your design to check your work.
Also, if you're working with a metal part that was machined, the person who designed the part probably used sensible numbers through most of it. The scanner doesn't have perfect resolution. That janky 29.78mm circle you measured on the mesh is probably 30mm. The bolts that are 100.17mm apart? They're probably exactly 100mm in the manufacturer's design. I try to double check with calipers to be sure, but that's true way more often than not.
Yes that's all covered in various course material and even some of our free content. Some of those basics that you don't know till you know but are all part of starting out. The little things all add up to make a big difference for sure and thanks for mentioning it for others to scroll past and benefit from if they're not aware already themselves.
Einstar has a Mac version of their software now too btw. Probably no good to you right now but when you're next looking to replace your PC/laptop you will have that option.
Hope you enjoy the course if you decide to dive into it. Remember there's a 60-day refund policy so win win, you either take it, find you are already up to speed on things and gain more confidence or you go through and learn some new valuable information and find value in having it - Taz.
www.hpacademy.com/courses/practical-3d-scanning/