In Spain, a technology center called Eurecat faced challenges in inspecting industrial sheet metal parts. The team needed to work efficiently, but the stringent requirements of product quality inspection exceeded the capabilities of their structured light 3D scanner. After applying 3D laser scanning for sheet metal inspection ( SHINING 3D’s FreeScan Combo laser 3D scanner), Eurecat overcame the challenge of quality control and improved digitization efficiency by more than 5 times.
Client: Eurecat
Location: Spain
Products: Design and distribution of ISF machines, sheet metal parts manufacturing
Need: Quality inspection of sheet metal parts
Solution: SHINING 3D FreeScan Combo 3D scanner
Results:
● Shiny and reflective parts can be scanned without using scanning sprays
● The digitizing process has sped up 80%
● Fine details can also be captured
Eurecat and the ISF Technology
Eurecat provides innovative technologies that offer solutions for various sectors, including industrial, digital, biotech, and sustainability. In the industrial sector, they have created a new generation of ISF machines to facilitate the implementation of Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) technology in the industry. ISF is a technology suitable for producing complex, non-prismatic, and organically shaped parts, allowing the manufacture of sheet metal parts with complex geometries. It is an excellent solution for companies manufacturing products in the automotive, aeronautical, mechanical, and household appliance industries. In addition to machine development, Eurecat offers customization and low-volume production services for aluminum and sheet metal parts.
Whether as a machine developer or a part manufacturer, Eurecat has to measure the parts to ensure the proper functioning of the machine and the quality of the parts produced.
Challenges of Scanning Sheet Metal Parts
Eurecat needed a reliable and efficient way to digitize and measure the sheet metal parts they designed and manufactured. Since 2015, they have been used a grating technology structured light 3D scanner. Although it is a fast and reliable digitizing technique, they still encountered 2 significant difficulties:
Reflective Surfaces
Structured light scanners with grating technology have limitations in acquiring data on reflective surfaces. Objects such as sheet metal parts require scanning spray to matt the surface before scanning. “That was certainly a mess since it added additional steps to our workflow and tedious cleaning tasks afterwards,” a staff from Eurecat claimed.
Key Features
Structured light scanners with grating technology also have limitations in capturing fine details. “Most of the shapes we deal with are smooth and easy to digitize, yet crucial smaller features, such as bent corners or cutting edges, could not be measured with enough detail, with enough resolution,” said an employee from Eurecat.
3D Laser Scanning for Sheet Metal Inspection
Eurecat is looking to solve the above problems with blue laser technology. Blue laser scanners can digitize objects with shiny and reflective surfaces without scanning sprays and provide fine details.
They finally chose the FreeScan Combo.
3D scanning the sheet metal part with FreeScan Combo
The blue laser-equipped FreeScan Combo allows Eurecat to acquire data directly from reflective sheet metal parts, saving them a great deal of time. The digitizing process becomes 80% faster without the spraying and cleaning steps, reducing the time from 30 minutes to 5 minutes.
In addition, the FreeScan Combo has an accuracy of up to 0.02mm, which ensures more reliable results. The 7 parallel laser lines mode is suitable for capturing fine details, thus helping inspectors to measure smaller key features.
3D data of the sheet metal part
“The blue laser technology from the FreeScan Combo was a promising step forward in the 3D scanner technology”, a staff from Eurecat continued, “seemed to tackle the pain points we were suffering before directly.”
Inspection data
After 8 years of using grating technology, switching to blue laser technology has transformed Eurecat’s quality control process. With the help of the SHINING 3D FreeScan Combo 3D laser scanner, scanning reflective surfaces is no longer a challenge, and the ability to capture fine detail has improved overall inspection accuracy.
