Creating complex shapes in CAD in a fraction of time

Wild Charge products simplify charging multiple electronic devices by adapting cell phones, music/video players and smartphones to charge without wires on a single WildCharger™ pad.

Wild Charge, a company that makes patented wire-free charging systems for consumer electronic products, has been winning accolades from the electronics industry and beyond for its innovative wireless charging systems.

The company’s products simplify charging multiple electronic devices by adapting cell phones, music/video players and smartphones to charge without wires on a single WildCharger™ pad. Each chargeable device is enabled with proprietary WildCharge technology either by attaching an adapter to the back cover or replacing the back cover with embedded charging technology. The enabled devices are placed on the WildCharger pad and charge the same as if they were plugged in to a wall charger. 

Rapid Line Expansion

WildCharge was quickly expanding its product line and needed CAD data from which to create adaptive battery-door covers and, new to the market, thermoplastic elastomer gel covers that wrap around the entire device.

While some extremely regularly shaped electronic devices are easy to measure and create models in CAD, others have irregularly shaped and curved surfaces which can take a long time to measure accurately. WildCharge Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Mitch Randall had used GKS Inspection’s scanning services in the past, so he recommended GKS, a division of Laser Design, to his team as a means to quickly obtain accurate CAD data of the complex geometry of the electronic products.

Dan Hoekstra, vice president of design and manufacturing engineer, was in charge of the project. “We needed an exact replica of the electronic devices in CAD format so we could develop our own CAD files for making the molds or tools for the WildCharge adapters,” says Hoekstra. “The items were difficult to measure due to their irregular shapes and the placement of the viewing windows and ports. Measuring these types of complex profiles manually is extremely time consuming and difficult at best.”

WildCharge was developing wire-free charging systems for iPods, iPhones, and several Blackberries and the products’ complex geometries required a non-contact, yet accurate measurement method. WildCharge’s management decided to send the devices to GKS for 3-D laser scanning.

“The iPhone has a series of complex curves around the outer perimeter,” Hoekstra add. “We can’t measure that manually. In this case laser scanning is a good fit for the application.”

Let’s Get Scanning

After initial contact was made with Larry Carlberg, GKS service bureau manager, the project commenced. WildCharge required different types of scans for five different devices. They sent the complete outside of two devices, the outside and inside of the battery cover for one device and one battery cover only to GKS for scanning. Carlberg notes, “We have done many phones and small electronic devices over the years, so our metrologists know how to approach them to obtain optimal scan data.”

GKS metrologists used Laser Design’s Surveyor WS-2030, their most automated and accurate system for the WildCharge scans.

Scanning free-form shapes and irregular surfaces is a prime application for non-contact laser scanning. Because the laser scanning system projects a line of laser light onto surfaces while cameras continuously triangulate the changing distance and profile of the laser line as it sweeps along, the problems of missing data on an irregularly shaped surface are eliminated. 

The laser line moves back and forth over the area until the complete surface is captured. The system measures details and complex free-form geometry so that the object can be exactly replicated digitally. Laser scanners measure articles quickly, picking up to 75,000 coordinate points per second, and generate huge numbers of data points without the need for templates or fixtures.

GKS metrologists used Laser Design’s Surveyor WS-2030, their most automated and accurate system for the WildCharge scans. It was equipped with the high-accuracy SLP-250 laser probe to provide the required tolerance of ±0.1 mm. Since the adapters that WildCharge was creating from the scan data were located on the backs of the devices, the location of keypads and viewing screens were not as critical as the profile of the cases. 

Laser scanning took less than one hour for each device, creating the CAD models had a turnaround time of a day or two. WildCharge received the 3-D parasolid models of all five devices within a week.

“Interrogation of the data provides answers for making the model,” explains Carlberg.  “Laser scanning on the Laser Design WS system gives us a virtual caliper for measuring irregular and complex shapes. It characterizes the section curves easily to import the data into a very accurate CAD model of the object scanned. Laser scanning is a very effective means to measure existing products digitally and put them into CAD files.” 

Laser scanning captures the real geometry and uses software to compare it to the CAD ideal, mapping the deviations. “Depending on what the customer wants, our modelers can average the deviation between the two sides and create symmetry in the part,” continues Carlberg. “We can adjust the model any way that is necessary to implement the best solution for the customer’s needs.” 

In some cases, a surface that is flat in the CAD world isn't flat in the physical world. GKS used parasolid CAD files created with 3-D laser scanning to create CAD files for the wire-free adaptors

Hoekstra adds that many of the devices they work with are not perfectly shaped to spec.  “For instance, in some cases, a surface that is flat in the CAD world is not flat in the real, physical world. We used the parasolid CAD files created with 3-D laser scanning at GKS as a reference from which to create our own CAD files for the wire-free adaptors. When a device is hard to measure manually, we get what is needed from 3-D laser scanning very quickly.” 

Dealing With Complex Shapes

WildCharge plans to dramatically increase the number of wire-free adaptors it carries in the next few months. “Very soon we will have more than nine products for sale, and thereafter we will have wire-free products for charging pretty much any device available,” says Hoekstra. “In the future, we expect our technology to be integrated inside cell phones and other devices at the time of manufacture. When that happens, users will not have to make any adaptations to their electronic devices to benefit from the technology.” 

“We find that laser scanning at GKS is good for dealing with complex shapes,” says Hoekstra. “It saves time in not having to manually measure and model irregular devices.  Since the digitized models can be colored realistically to look exactly like the real thing, we can also use the files for ‘show-and-tell’ pieces before actual production, in investor and sales presentations.”