Mechanical Reverse Engineering
Mechanical Reverse Engineering
(OP)
This is more of an OPINION thread than a question. I am posting it because I always get excellent comments here.
If you were asked to "REVERSE ENGINEER" something, what would that mean to you?
I've dealt with several engineering companies during my work experiece, and this is the first I had to get into "reverse engineering", so looking for opinions.
Thanks again in advance.
If you were asked to "REVERSE ENGINEER" something, what would that mean to you?
I've dealt with several engineering companies during my work experiece, and this is the first I had to get into "reverse engineering", so looking for opinions.
Thanks again in advance.





RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
Rather more entertaining is when your prototype exhibits a certain characteristic and your competitor's does not. Then you try to reverse engineer their solution. As an example of that, the accepted wisdom was that to improve isolation in a car you should stiffen the structure, and soften the isolators.
Cursory examination of a competitor's car showed that they could not possibly be doing this, yet their noise performance was pretty good.
So we did an experiment comparing our strategy, their strategy, and a few other things, and learned a great deal.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
The primary objective of my job was to make our product work better. I learned a lot by examining and testing competitors' products that we were replacing, conducting similar tests on our own products, and doing comparative anatomy.
I kept a huge spreadsheet that carried a rough math model of every part we built, and another spreadsheet with test data from every sea trial we conducted, of ours or anyone else's stuff.
I was continually refining the math model spreadsheet, and it eventually got good enough to accurately predict the performance of our product, so the tool got better, and by making incremental changes and measuring the results, our product got better, and our process got better.
Then I was replaced by an id10t, but that's another story.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
TTFN
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RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
If you don’t have drawings of a part, but have a physical component and would like to make improvements, then RE is the best approach.
To quote an example, several years back I had worked on a project for an automobile company. Their engine block had vibration problems. They did not have the drawings or CAD model to conduct the FE analysis as the castings were very old. So we had to digitally scan the physical part and generated new CAD models. Complete FEA was done on the CAD model, the problem was identified and the casting was modified to address the issue.
Hopefully, below links should help.
http://www.npd-solutions.com/reoverview.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering
Thanks
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
Reverse engineering is pretty common in many engineering endeavors. There isn’t much sense in wasting the time to reinvent the wheel each time you want a round, rolling, weight supporting thingy. Of course, you do have to be careful of patent infringement in the process. In point of fact, much of what we do has been done before, with minor variations. You know, a shaft is a shaft, a simple beam is a simple beam. Many times the effort is to make it better, less expensively, stronger, less fracture critical, etc. And, there are also plenty of times when someone’s idea is out-n-out stolen, with insignificant variations, just to be able to say it’s a new idea, I’m not stealing your idea. And, you and your company have to weigh the ethics of doing that, from case to case.
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
_____________________________________
"It's better to die standing than live your whole life on the knees" by Peter Mayle in his book A Good Year
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
how does it work
why does it work
did they meet all the standards and regulations
why did the other guys design it this way
You do learn a lot during the process, and sometimes discover that your way is the best approach, or their way doesn't work with your processes. The results of reverse engineering can go to improve your own design "best practices", to being used as ammunition for your sales force to talk up your products and/or talk down the competitions.
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
Not only China reverse engineer. Japan undertakes this same practice in order to miniaturize, improve upon, or forward a particular technology as an improvement. So it is an evolutionary endeavor. I point out that South Africa also did this in order to circumvent international laws on armaments, as did certain European countries during the 30's. There are other examples.
Reverse engineering is the black art. It can be a bad thing, but typically as an academic exercise, a good thing for the economy. Or so I believe.
Regards,
Cockroach
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.
www.carbideprocessors.com
Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
It's the "why did he do that," and "why he didn't do this," that spells the difference between reverse engineering and copying.
TTFN
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RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
Also a danger: missing crucial details. Torakusu Yamaha brilliantly copied the components of an organ and produced his own "working" model...with horrific intonation. It wasn't until he learned music theory and tuning that he was able to start producing quality instruments.
"Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems." -Scott Adams
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
TTFN
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RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
If the original supplier is no longer around or pretends to have lost the drawings, this leads - legally - to reverse engineering at the level of simple copying.
A.
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
When it comes to reverse engineering, most people fail to appreciate the huge amount of engineering work that goes into manufacturing a product, which may not be readily apparent.
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
I probably won't bother to explain that properly engineering a product from scratch is hugely expensive. ... because asking for a copy suggests that the money man already understands Terry's point about that.
I will point out that a copy operation will most likely result in hard feelings, litigation, and a product that is merely 'competitive',
whereas, for more than the cost of a copy, but less than the cost of 'from scratch', true reverse engineering should result in a superior product.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
They take an existing part, copy it, and sell it.
This is big in the "replacement parts" industry.
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
For stylized / freeform shapes, it's a set of good clean data in a data format suitable for further production without loss of function. It could be NURBS or polygon data.
In a few cases, the original design was parametric. I would not expect parametric data unless multiple instances of the parametric product are reverse engineered and parametricity was part of the requirements.
There are plenty of folks out there who "reverse engineer" parts and deliver something that does not get to the end goals I outlined above. Whenever the subject of reverse engineering something comes up I automatically push towards the subject of the outcome because everything in between depends on it.
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
Summarizing, it depends upon who is doing it and gravity of the situation making him / her to do it.
RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
TTFN
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RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering
Case in point is one simple item that I could give you the drawing for and the material specs and the chances are 50/50 you would still end up destroying engines if you made them. The drawing is accurate, but without knowing important things about how it is made (documented elsewhere), you would be stuffed.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Mechanical Reverse Engineering