Looking for info on FARO tech/prices

[bergers59]

I just graduated school and now have time do dedicate to my camaro project. It's been in planning for a while, and some solidworks work has been done so far but I've hit a roadblock. I'm looking for a company that does FARO arm measuring and scanning so I can put STEP files of my car, and most importantly subframes into solidworks. If anyone has any connections, price estimates to have this done, or knowledge about this please chime in, thanks.

[68 stang]

It all depends on what exactly you want. I have ran Faro arms and laser trackers. Really cool stuff. I am assuming that you do not need a laser tracker for what you are doing. They recently came out with a scanning head which you see there. You are looking at I think 60k to buy one.

If you just need points in space so you can reverse engineer and fabricate parts. Look at a gold or silver Faro arm. The head is smaller and they run about 10k on eBay. Easy to use. Make sure you get a 8 foot arm or better.

To rent an arm is around 2500 a week, one week minimum.

To rent equipment they will ship it any where in the US overnight. The only way they will do it. It is $1000 one way.

Where do you live by chance. If you do buy one, software will probably be extra.

If you have someone to come out to do it, look around 60/hr for drive time, then 100- 150 a hour plus the cost of the rental.

Hope this helps.

[96z28ss]

This is extremely expensive, especially if you want to do an entire car.
The data is a mesh of points. You won't get a step file to import into CAD.
You would need to surface the point data, then that surface you can import into CAD.

I used to have access to a Laser scanner, when you include the scanner, 8 ft arm, tripod, laptop, polyworks or geomagic software to surface the point data, you're over $130k new.

[bergers59]

Originally Posted by 96z28ss

This is extremely expensive, especially if you want to do an entire car.
The data is a mesh of points. You won't get a step file to import into CAD.
You would need to surface the point data, then that surface you can import into CAD.

yeah I'm definitely not interested in buying one, considering in theory I would only need to use it once. I understand you would pull points from the machine to create a mesh, but it would eventually be converted into STEP file format correct? Otherwise, what kind of file would it be/how would I use it? Also approximately how much time would be involved to pull points from the subframes, or even the whole car? I've never used one personally, only seen them used on small parts for qc.

[96z28ss]

You typically are only using the file for reference. I used the scanner and scanned the side of a vehicle which would take a couple hours. then it would take a few more hours to align the scans and smooth and clean the scan.
At that point you can create a mesh file that gives you an .stl file (STereoLithography) which you will be able to import into a CAD system.

If you want a surface file from that mesh. Side of a vehicle could take a couple days. A surface just around a few areas would be just a couple more hours.

really depends how much info you want to extract from the scan.

[bergers59]

Originally Posted by 96z28ss

You typically are only using the file for reference. I used the scanner and scanned the side of a vehicle which would take a couple hours. then it would take a few more hours to align the scans and smooth and clean the scan.
At that point you can create a mesh file that gives you an .stl file (STereoLithography) which you will be able to import into a CAD system.

If you want a surface file from that mesh. Side of a vehicle could take a couple days. A surface just around a few areas would be just a couple more hours.

really depends how much info you want to extract from the scan.

Got it, so for my purposes; suspension design and component layout, a mesh file should be fine depending on the density of the mesh.