HPE - Heggs Performance Engineering

  Pelicase have an endless assortment of cases and ideas for how you could use them 1.1 The need to build a tool kit has resulted in an over engineered answer to a problem normally answered with some webbing and a couple of rivets. But you want some too. Portability and relative light weight was leading us down the root of a Peli case based kit with foam shelves for convenience and easy tool control (very important in the aerospace industry where the kit will be used) just like the examples in fig 1.1.  Of course we are not the first people to want to use foam shelves in a Peli case and as such there are a number of ideas out there for what to do. These are generally consisting of : Tool foam comes in many shapes & colours 1.2 Cut outs in the foam Webbing straps Fold out shelves running a slim case with foam on the base and lid. These are all fine but we thought we could come up with something a bit more elegant. The design brief was simple: They needed to be strong enoug...

 Welding is   to unite (metallic parts) by heating and allowing the metals to flow together or by hammering .  Repaired water tank fig 1.1 The same could be said for Plastic welding, well maybe without the hammers. However as you can see in fig 1.1 on the right it isn't always as simple as that. When you are welding with metals, it is important that the materials you weld with match those used in the construction of what you are trying to repair and this is the same for plastics, for the most part. If you know the material which something is made of, then you can use matching welding rods to repair the damaged area so long as the material was a thermo-plastic.  Likewise; the colour, if important to the customer, can be matched relatively closely too. Sometimes the material cannot be matched for a number of reasons so an alternative is needed; Fibreflex. This welding material is a composite of plastic and fibreglass which, rather than mixing with the ba...

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...

From an evening chat to having a custom product in your hand the following day. The kind of thing formula 1 teams strive for can be achieved in just a few focused hours. This is a long read following the process of a custom build for a customer. Wit h people at home more than usual of late, we all find ourselves procrastinating and tackling all of those big projects we have sat around our workshops. One such task was Andy Green's (of Racing Green) A ermacchi which he is building up to compete in classic motorcycle racing. Among many other things discussed; the side fairing brackets needed looking into. The existing nylon ones he has fitted were profiled to an old fairing and appeared to have been held on by string through the drill hole and the fairing attached by an M6 bolt threaded into the nylon. Functional but we could do better. Design requirements Cutting or drilling the frame was out of the question ruling out any bolted or split pinned attaching devices. T...

If you have been following our facebook page, you will know we are focused on providing face shield frames for key workers during this COVID19 pandemic.  Our 3D printer has been non stop printing Prusa face shield frames .  These are then carefully bagged up and shipped off to a regional hub set up by  3DCrowd  where they are then distributed to key workers over the UK. A big part of this is strict hygiene when handling the products. As such the surfaces are kept clean and hands always thoroughly cleaned whenever any part of a print needs to be handled. Where possible we are also using PET-G which is the most suitable material from a food hygiene perspective. Whilst deliveries of more filament are being patiently waited on, we have made use of anything we have around the workshop. As such the colour variety has not been boring at all! With the printer churning out frames day and night, we are quickly producing frames ready for delivery and ev...

Hello and welcome to the Heggs Performance Engineering blog. I have been helping people out for as long as I have been wielding spanners. As the years have worn on, my skill set has grown and as such the jobs that I do for others have done so to. I have designed and produced solutions for engineering problems for myself and other and it is now at a point where I am able to providing these to the general public.  A bit about me I have been working around the engineering trade since I left school with a foray into machining followed by motorcycle mechanics before I settled into the aerospace engineering industry as an EASA approved category B1.1 aircraft engineer. When I am not fixing planes I am usually associated with motorcycle, especially racing motorcycles. You will find me competing in the Classic Racing Motorcycle club on the Honda VFR750 RC24 or Yamaha RD250 pictured on the right. Through all of this and a number of other projects; I have accumulated quite a...