Designing a Space Mouse Case

At times, a customer will come to us with an idea whether it is a hand sketch, a picture, or a simple drawing with dimensions on it in hopes of creating a prototype by 3D printing it.

Here, at Cimquest, we have all the tools needed to create and produce these ideas and bring them to life. To illustrate this, we have created a portable case to carry a 3D Connexion Wireless Space Mouse and USB, since there was nowhere to place the USB receiver when carrying the mouse around.

We still had the molded pulp packaging, which contains the cavity of the space mouse, with a perfect fit, so our first task was to capture this geometry.

We used Geomagic’s Capture scanner for this task, which scans at a resolution of .007.” As it rotates and scans, it aligns each scan to the next and then easily stitches them together as one clean mesh file.

Next, we used Design X to reverse engineer the geometry into an editable CAD model.

Once we recreated what we needed, we exported out the geometry and the Feature Manager Tree to SOLIDWORKS. In SOLIDWORKS is where the engineering happens. After completing the bottom case, we were able to build the top cover in-context of the assembly, add the lip and groove, and make sure that the clips cleared the holes.

Before 3D printing, we wanted to validate the design, so we used SOLIDWORKS Simulation for this. We were quickly able to determine how much the clips displace when they are depressed, make sure that they don’t go beyond the yield strength of PA12, and determine the Factor of Safety.

After going through a few iterations, we printed the model in the HP Jet Fusion 3D Printer and it worked like a charm! Where other extrusion-based printers had issues when over flexing the model, the Jet Fusion 3D printer was able to produce a fully functional, dimensionally accurate, durable prototype.

As you can see, here at Cimquest, we have the tools, the knowledge, and the expertise to bring ideas to life! Do you have an idea, or need something reverse engineered or designed in CAD? Let Cimquest help you bring your ideas, from concept to reality!