The black fabric can guess the form of a two-seater buggies. It is in a trough-shaped device about the size of a ship container. The head of a 3-D printer carries in the style of a hot air gun the next 212 layers of plastic on, the ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) is called and hardens after cooling.
It’s the same stuff of which are also Lego bricks. 44 hours does it take then the 3-D printer has completed the supporting structure of the car. Take another 24 hours to a computer-controlled five-axis milling machine has the corrugated surface sanded smooth -. And it can go to the assembly of mechanics
What as the first step in a anmutet revolutionary new era in automotive production, from Chandler (US state of Arizona) shows coming start-up company Local Motors. Local Motors CEO John B. “Jay” Rogers, a Harvard graduate, has almost subversive vision. What Tesla and the boss Elon Musk at the popularization of electric cars succeeds, the former US Navy now hovers for the automotive manufacturing ago.
The goal is to auto parts quickly and easily print to avoid excess material to minimize transportation costs and comply with rapid design changes new customer needs immediately. “The three critical variables for the car manufacturers are the many items, the weight and cost of the tool manufacturing,” says Rogers. The new process press the three cost drivers and opens up other exciting opportunities.
cell structures such as a bone
For example, the end the Mega-car factories. “The world does not need another Detroit,” Rogers sounded at the premiere of the aptly-named “Strati” (Italian for “layers”) layer model baptized weeks ago. Four or five years of development would in future no longer exist, he predicts. Instead, you can continue to design, develop and using 3-D printing techniques and build a new car in four months.
In micro-factories, as well as maximum 10,000 to 15,000 units per year. The design is based on what is currently the trend. “Because our models are organic, they grow from cell structures such as a bone,” says Rogers. And they were made only a fraction of component parts -. 49 there are at Strati, instead of 5000 to 6000 in today’s popular vehicles
belongs to the core principles of Local Motors the use of techniques such as open source and crowdfunding. Proposals for the design and technology of the cars will be created, collected and matched in an online community with currently more than 40,000 members. Also the Strati was the winner of a internet design competition. The draft Turiners Michele Anoe liked by the comparatively easy to print the form and the removable roof.
With the 3-D printer chassis incurred and all interior including parts of the seats. The battery, the electric motor, the wiring harness, suspensions and withdrawals lighting Americans, however, the building block of the French Renault Twizy. The parts of the electrically powered two-seater was media attention incorporated during a trade show in Chicago before the Strati buzzed into the open on its own audience.
The range of today’s printing process is extremely broad, but a principle unites them all: they build three-dimensional objects from digital copy accurately layer by layer, instead of a blank to the ablate desired shape. Unlike the cutting, turning or boring hence no waste or scrap applies. In addition, complex shapes can be represented, in which an existing machine would quickly reach their limits.
The 3-D technology has already found in a number of sectors and application has become indispensable in medical technology, aerospace industry and architecture. The new engine LEAP (for “leap) from General Electric to increase from 2016, inter alia, the Airbus A320neo in the air.
spare parts for classic cars not only on Ebay
<. p id = "p12" class = "artContent"> In the automotive world, it is surprisingly the classic car scene that already benefits from the new technologies Jay Leno, American entertainer and passionate car and motorcycle collectors, exults: “As long as CAD data, or a scannable document are available, can be as good as anything reproduce.
Small parts such as a door handle can I make in five hours, a large part . as the over 100 years has become porous water preheater for my white-steam car of 1907 in 33 Hours “The costs are manageable: $ 2,995 for the scanner, less than 15,000 dollars for the printer Mass production is not yet possible.” But you need no longer to look for any small spare parts on Ebay “jokes Leno.
But what the oldies friend would be so, is also with seven-figure prices offered top printers are not 1: 1 applied to large-scale models. According to Nikolai Zaepernick, Head of Strategy and Business Development at EOS in Krailling near Munich, it would – if at all – take a few more years, can be printed up whole cars. “The size of the printable parts will indeed grow steadily over the next few years, but it will not necessarily change for each component, which is now manufactured using conventional and economically in large numbers, in an additive process,” says Zaepernick.
Especially in the automotive industry so important unit cost of a brake pad. It will quickly interesting but in the luxury segment, with antique cars, tuning cars or in Formula 1, ie in sectors where today almost all of the teams constituted the new technology for heavy duty applications.
two-seater with three wheels as a prototype
By the three-dimensional molded series product, it is still a very long way, also believes Simon Reader, worked as head of development at Mahle Powertrain in Northampton. The manager says, “When it comes to 100,000 identical parts, a permanent tool has continued cost savings.” Perry hubbing of RedEye, a subsidiary of 3-D pioneer Stratasys expects a span of just five to ten years, “before we can produce parts in such large quantities.”
If you believe this expert, so it will probably not come to that scenario, which prophesied the management consulting multi-nationals already apocalyptic. Then could in 20 years VW models developed in 100 worldwide design studio and built to our customers in ten thousand 3-D fast printer stations – the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, one can then confidently use as a museum
For those visionaries who would nevertheless sooner rather than later adopted by the status quo, heard Jim Kor. The engineer and inventor from Winnipeg, Canada has already 2011, the body of his three-wheeled Urbee small car produced by a printer. Steering is the building on a conventional tubular frame model of the single rear wheel, two electric motors drive the two front wheels, a padded with ethanol lawnmower engine serves as extended range. The two-seater boasts a very low coefficient of drag (Cd) of 0.15 -. Result of the drop shape including comb tail
At prices from $ 18,000 Available online
2500 hours took me a series of 3-D printers to spit the body in layers of six millimeters thick. The hearing is indeed a long time, but you could save so up to ten months to develop, Cor claims soothingly. The Canadian is convinced that the technology and how we still build cars today will definitely change. “Not everything will be printed in 3-D, but a large part of a car,” he says.
“One day it will be possible parts in a print operation and to paint. ” The successor of the Urbee that weighs only 600 pounds and 0.8 liters / 100 km consumes wants to leave already Cor print more than 60 percent, for example, the glass window yet. “And we plan to reduce the items to just 30 pieces.”
While Cor for a possible small series of his model is yet needed financially strong partner, Local Motors has have specific sales targets. Jay Rogers will then continue pressing the construction of Strati once at 24 and only ten hours. In 2016, the two-seater is meant to arrive at prices from 18,000 to 30,000 dollars in trade. The electric drive will remain so in the future
That could -. And since two would meet with the same pioneering spirit -. Tesla CEO Musk come
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