HPE - Heggs Performance Engineering

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...