WHAT IS REVERSE ENGINEERING
Reverse engineering is the process to convert an existing physical product into drawings or digital models. It adds discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation.
Reverse engineering (RE) is the process that takes something (a device, an electrical component, a software program, etc.) Apart and analysing its workings in detail, usually to construct a new device or program. It does the same thing without actually copying anything from the original. Engineering services like us offer the best original design intention as we use the best reverse engineering services.
The resulting knowledge gained through the reverse-engineering process is applied to the design of similar products. It capitalised on successes and learning from the shortcomings of existing designs. The objective of our reverse engineering team is to offer cutting-edge top of the line services to a growing number of clients.
Research and development come with a specific problem-solving approach used intensively in a business where industries prepare devices and systems for the marketplace.
Did you want to shift the manufacturing of a part to a different partner company and realised that you don’t have actual manufacturing drawings.
Make design changes to an assembly and notice that you don’t have the drawings for it?
Is the local scanning shop charging you a ransom to reverse engineer a part?
Do you have a concept that is carved out or modelled with your hands? Which do you want to be manufactured to the exact level of detail?
Send us those parts, and we will manufacture drawings for you.
Our company deals with customer requirements on a wide scale and use highly accurate CAD data. It comes with complexity in size. Our team helps with a challenge like providing the best quality services.
We carry out work that involves in-class A surfaces as well as electronics intensive consumer products. We worked on castings, forgings and injection moulded parts. Our parts are small, as a couple of millimeters comes with several feet in dimensions.
Technology at Australian Design & Drafting lies in skilled hands. Our mechanical engineers offer broad industry experience, have product development and manufacturing experience.
Its designed and prototyped products are complex. Few examples include complex automotive castings, investment cast components used in aircraft engines, medical devices and injection molded furniture. Industries we serve are from hi-technology, medical, consumer electronics to machine tools, automotive and aerospace.
Engineering involves designing, manufacturing, constructing, and maintaining products, systems, and other structures. At a higher level, there are two types of engineering such as forward engineering and reverse engineering.
Forward engineering is the traditional process to move from high-level abstractions. The logical designs to the physical implementation of a system add few situations. There may be a physical part without technical details, like drawings, bills-of-material, or engineering data. The thermal and electrical properties cover as shown below.
The process of duplicating an existing component is subassembly or product without drawings, documentation, or other computer model known as reverse engineering.
Reverse engineering is viewed as the process of analysing a system to:
- Identify the system’s components and their inter-relationships.
- Create representations of the system into another form or a higher level of abstraction.
- Create the physical representation of that system.
Reverse engineering is common in diverse fields. It includes software engineering, automotive, entertainment, consumer products, electronics, microchips, chemicals, and mechanical designs.
Let’s say, when a new machine comes to market, it competing manufacturers buy one machine and disassemble it to learn how it is built and how it works.
A chemical company use reverse engineering to defeat a patent on a competitor’s manufacturing process. Additionally, in civil engineering, bridge and building designs are copied from past successes. It results in less catastrophic failure. In software engineering, a good source code often comes with a variation of other good source code.
In some situations, designers shape their ideas by using clay, plaster, wood, or foam rubber, but a CAD model enables the manufacturing of the part. As products become more organic in shape, designing in CAD may be challenging or impossible. It doesn’t come with a guarantee that the CAD model is acceptably chosen to close to the sculpted model. Reverse engineering offers a solution to the problem because the physical model is the source of information for the 3D CAD Model. It refers to the part-to-CAD process.
The other reason for reverse engineering is to compress product development times. Manufacturers constantly seek new ways to shorten lead times to market a new product in the intensely competitive global market. Rapid product development (RPD) refers to recently developed technologies and techniques which assist manufacturers and designers in meeting the demands and reduced product development time. For example, injection-moulding companies drastically reduce the tool and die development times. It uses reverse engineering. A three-dimensional product or model can be quickly captured in digital form. It is re-modelled and exported for rapid prototyping or rapid manufacturing.
Following are the main reasons for reverse engineering a part or product, they are:
- The manufacturer of a product no longer produces any product.
- It comes with inadequate documentation of the original design
- The original manufacturer no longer exists but fulfil the customer’s requirement of the product.
- The primary design documentation has been lost or never existed.
- Few bad features of a product need to be designed out. For example, excessive wear indicates where a product should be improved as required.
- Strengthen the good features of a product, and it needs long-term usage of the product.
- To analyse the good and bad features of competitors’ products.
- Exploring new avenues improves product performance and features.
- To gain competitive benchmarking methods to understand the competitor’s products and develop better products.
- The original CAD model does not sufficiently support modify or current manufacturing methods.
- The supplier is unable or unwilling to provide additional parts.
- The original equipment manufacturers are unwilling or unable to supply replacement parts or demand inflated costs for sole-source parts.
- To update obsolete materials, antiquated manufacturing processes with more current, less-expensive technologies.
Reverse engineering enables the duplication of existing parts by capturing the component’s physical dimensions, features, and other material properties. Before attempting reverse engineering, a well-planned life-cycle analysis and cost/benefit analysis were conducted to justify the reverse engineering projects. Reverse engineering is typically cost-effective in items to be reverse engineered that reflect a high investment or reproduced in large quantities. Reverse engineering of a part is attempted even if it’s not cost-effective if it requires a system’s critical mission.
Reverse engineering of mechanical parts adds acquiring three-dimensional position data in the point cloud. It uses laser scanners or computed tomography (CT). It represents the geometry of the part in terms of surface points. It’s the first step in creating parametric surface patches. Suitable polymers made from the point cloud use reverse engineering software. The cleaned-up polymesh, NURBS surfaces, NURBS (Non-uniform rational B-spline) curves, or NURBS surfaces export to CAD packages for further analysis, refinement, and generation of cutter tool paths CAM. Finally, the CAM produces the physical part.
The reverse engineering begins with the product and works through the design in the opposite direction, and it arrives at a product definition statement (PDS). In doing so, it uncovers as much information as possible about the design ideas used to produce a particular product.
The following are the steps of the reverse engineering process:Reverse Engineering Process
a. Prediction
- What is the purpose of this product?
- How does it work?
- What market was it designed to appeal for?
- List a few of the design objectives for the product.
- List a few of the constraints that may have influenced the design.
b. Observation
- How do you think it works?
- How does it meet design objectives (overall)?
- Why is was designed the way it is?
c. Disassemble
- How does it work?
- How is it made?
- How many parts?
- How many moving parts?
- Any surprises?
d. Analyze
- Carefully examine and analyse subsystems (structural, mechanical, and electrical) and develop annotated sketches that include measurements and notes on components, system design, safety, and controls.
e. Test
- Carefully reassemble the product.
- Operate the device and record observations about its functionality (operational and ergonomic) and projected durability.
f. Documentation
- Inferred design goals
- Inferred constraints
- Design (functionality, form (geometry), and materials)
- Schematic diagrams
- Lists (materials, components, critical components, flaws, successes, etc.)
- Identify any refinements that might enhance the product’s usefulness.
- Upgrades and changes