I am having trouble deciding which route I should take moving forward. The most frequent use so far has been automotive related scans for custom parts. (Previous uses include – Alternator bracket for a twin turbo LS swapped 350z. Gauge pods and switch panels for interior. Etc.) I have had an einstar for about 18 months and it was good enough to get what I wanted with some work. I liked the idea of the Vega, so I picked one of those up a few weeks ago.
First impressions with the Vega were underwhelming. It’s been cold here, so i tried to get a few scans of some things in my basement and it really struggled with everything that I tried. It wouldn’t track my mostly black and shiny computer chair at all, which isn’t completely unexpected. I also tried to scan my laser engraver and it apparently really struggled with the finish on the laser. I thought that being on an organically colored piece of plywood would help in texture scanning mode, but still no go. I added a bunch of marker pieces to the area to help with tracking and it got a little better, but still not great.
At this time, I decided to dig my einstar out and give that a try. Tracking was significantly better, but it also struggled with the finish on the laser gantry. With a lot of patience, the Vega spit out what appears to be a better result, but it was hours of trying and multiple charging sessions to get there.
The weather got a little better, so I decided to take the Vega outside and try to scan one of my cars exterior. I live on a gravel road, so everything is always covered in dust. I scanned one side of the car and it turned out alright. Not great.
I also tried scanning the trunk area of another car because I’m going to build a custom subwoofer box. I didn’t expect great results here because it’s dark carpet. There were quite a few pieces of leaf debris back there, I decided to leave the debris hoping it would help with scanning. The Vega did a surprisingly decent job here, but the carpet in the lower part of the trunk area must be a different material than the upper because it wouldn’t pick it up at all. They’re both black to my eyes, but the scanner definitely sees them differently. I added some scanning spray to the bottom carpet and it worked fairly well. Probably well enough for me to do what I need to do.
At this point, I was feeling a little let down by the Vega. It seems to me to be about on par with the original einstar except wireless with a short life battery that needed to be recharged often. So I ordered a metrox.
The metrox showed up yesterday and is unopened, but I am having trouble deciding if I should send it back and step up to something like a peel3 or if I should give the metrox a try first and see if it works better for what I am trying to do. The peel 3 isn’t really in my budget at the moment, but I’m wondering if i should buy once cry once and get something that just works instead of buying these lower end scanners that aren’t quite there. I don’t have any experience with a peel3, but I know a couple people that do and they recommend them.
Any insights? Anybody have experience with a combination of these scanners?
submitted by /u/dylbob8
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