Reverse Engineering of a Motor Bracket for a Lathe Chip Conveyor

A fallen motor, a broken housing and no spare part available: we measured it, redrew it in SolidWorks, programmed the machining in Mastercam and manufactured it in aluminum.

The problem: a broken housing

The motor of the chip conveyor on a Jator lathe with a Fagor control fell to the floor, and the housing that holds it broke into pieces.

The part had to be recovered so that the motor could be mounted again, and we did it through reverse engineering.

Measuring and reverse engineering the part

We measured the different parts of the housing and everything that remained of it, including the broken areas, so that the parts could be redrawn with their real dimensions.

Complete redesign in SolidWorks

With the measurements taken, all the parts were redrawn in SolidWorks, rebuilding the geometry of the housing and of the motor bracket in a 3D model ready for manufacturing.

Toolpath programming with Mastercam

On top of the model, all the machining toolpaths for the parts were programmed in Mastercam; they define how each part will be manufactured on the machine.

Post-processing and machining in 7075 aluminum

The toolpaths were post-processed for a Haas TM-1P machine, on which the parts were machined in 7075 aluminum to replace the housing and the motor bracket of the chip conveyor.

An example of our complete workflow: reverse engineering, CAD design and CAM programming through to the finished part.