Ritvik Mega Bloks, one of the top 10 toy brands in North America is specialized in children’s toys. One of their most popular brands is Mega Bloks, plastic building blocks but the company also distributes puzzles and craft-based products worldwide.
To create a replica of a rally car for its Pro-Builder line of toys for children 5 years and up, Megabloks used methods similar to those of leading car manufacturers including clay models and reverse engineering with a Kreon Zephyr KZ 50 scanner.
The 2D sketches provided by the Megabloks designers were the basis for the creation of the clay model. To save time and clay, just half of the car was designed and a mirror was used to achieve symmetry. Scan data provided by the Kreon Zephyr scanner enabled modification of the model's shape in just a few hours until final approval. Integrated onto a portable measuring arm, the Zephyr KZ 50 scanner swept accross the surface of the object like a simple paintbrush, collecting and measuring the data in less than 10 minutes. The non-contact measurement technology used by Kreon prevented damage to the clay model, as there was no physical contact with the part, a remarkable advantage compared to traditional contact probing.
The STL file provided by the scanner was imported into Geomagic Studio reverse engineering software and the unscanned half of the model was automatically reconstructed. Subsequent creation of a CAD model took only one day. An IGES file was imported from Geomagic studio into Solidworks, a well-known software that enabled splitting the 3D model into nice-looking parts that would be easy and safe for children to manipulate. Parts were also optimised to meet the requirements for injection moulding of the car's interlocking plastic pieces. Just like during the assembly process of a bigger scale car, gaps between the different parts needed to be reduced to the minimum to ensure perfect fit. The final Class A surface was generated with Catia software and made available in 2 weeks, considerably shortening Mega Bloks' typical design process and drastically cutting time-to-market delays and product development costs.
Using Kreon's laser 3D scanning technology enabled Mega Bloks to access easily the professional levels of carstyling.
Legrand is the world leader in products and systems for electrical installation and information networks, with an offering which includes more than 100 different ranges. A Kreon Zephyr KZ 25 scanner is used on a 3D coordinate measuring machine in the Measurement Laboratory of the Quality and Environment service of the group.
The Kreon Zephyr laser scanner, associated to an inspection software is used to control new components and compare them to their CAD definition. Deviations can be clearly identified and analysed with a detailed color map. The accuracy and technological advance of the Kreon laser scanners were important criteria in Legrand’s choice.
