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EDIT: For those joining the conversation in this thread a little late, a short summary of the thread has graciously been put up by another poster (Graham S) to help bring you up to speed on what has been discussed. Many ideas have been presented and this synopsis should give a reader a good idea of what we are talking about in any new posts with our jargon and acronyms. Happy reading.
http://www.indoor.flyer.co.uk/digiarm.htm
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I'd like to model the inside of an automotive interior to machine plastic parts to fit against the countoured surfaces of the sheet metal.
I'm looking at purchasing a digitizing arm as it seems the next most affordable option after using a contact probe on a homemade 3-axis machine. A machine that needs to be setup quite differently since it needs to work 'inside' of boundries.
The Microscribe seems like a decent price at just over $3k, and I've heard the Faro arms are over $10k but instead of a 3ft arm can go to a 12ft arm! And I've seen some other companies market arms too. Anyone know of other affordable options?
I'd love to think that someone has worked out a DIY system for putting affordable 2000 count encoders on a homemade arm with rollerbearing pivots and software to translate the kinematics. But I'm not about to hold my breath.....
Cliff