HPE - Heggs Performance Engineering

Much like other manufacturers, we will chose a suitable material and build parameters to suit the needs of any product, but unlike them; we also give you the choice to make your own informed decisions. The design  in any given product takes the following requirements into account: Strength Hardness Ductility Malleability Elasticity Temperature resistance Chemical compatibility Weight Aesthetics Transfer of loads ....and the list goes on. We pick a balance with all of these needs to best suit the majority of people. You may have a stronger need in one direction than most people have and that is where you can make an informed choice to go with something other than what we have suggested. Let us break down some of the things that you can alter to best suit your own needs.  Material There is no one material which will best suit all requirements. You will now find a mind boggling number of materials out there so picking the right one can be tough. Here is a little information to he...

Following on from last weeks blog on design from imagery , you may not be surprised to see that we have a new product to share with you, our first in fact. After finding the need to replace a broken swing arm infill on a Yamaha TZ250 C chassis; a replacement was designed in CAD software. This has since been edited and fettled to produce an economical replacement for the 40 year old factory part. The key was to produce something that was faithful to the original part whilst still being economical to produce using 3D printing. We will now take you through the process of designing this product before getting down to the specifications we finished upon. Process  The original part was produced in solid ABS using injection moulding. This is ideal for producing large numbers of a product but the production run here is unlikely to breach a few hundred so 3D printing is most suitable.   This comes with its own challenges and advantages. The initial costs and subsequent low vo...

Broken an unobtanium part? Fear not! Armed with a scanner and a rule, we may be able to solve that problem for you. After a chain failure the already very brittle looking rear mudguard on a Yamaha TZ250 took quite the beating. Missing a corner it was now looking very tatty and in need of replacing. Something that isn't super easy on a 40+ year old bike. This was a great opportunity to try out a new technique where you get an image of the component , scale match it then make a copy in Fusion 360. There are a number of potential advantages to working this way: For one, you will get an accurate copy of the component you are trying to recreate quickly but you will also have a basis to improve upon the design, depending on your taste. As you can see on the image on the right there is a large chunk missing that chain side which some artistic licence is require but otherwise this is a simple flat plate with an added joggled section to allow for wheel clearance when the chain is adjusted w...

With things a bit quiet of late, here are a few of the more exciting projects (that we can actually talk about) that we have been up to over the last few months. The upper fairing brackets on Gavin's Honda VFR750 FH RC24 had been earmarked for replacement for a long time now. The plan was to turn some nylon bar, making some light weight standoffs to replace the alloy ones that were currently in use. This would only make things look better however and he wanted a camera mount too why not kill two birds with one stone? A little while with a rule and sat in front of the computer later and we had this. The Go-pro type camera mount is bolted on through the two holes on the plate, something we hope to integrate in the future but this worked a treat as it was. Once you have had a read, check out the video below to enjoy this little bracket in action.   Cutlery drawers are a pain to keep tidy if you don't have a nice divider. The race vans cutlery drawer was not of a standard size s...