[sridhu]

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/26...but-in-chicago

The article talks about Strati, an $ 1,800 (no, there is no zero missing. It is 1,800) car that is printed from scratch in 44 hours. The engine & mechanicals are added and hey presto, you are ready to go.

Cool looking and definitely a vision of the not-too-distant future (expected to be available in 2015!).

Only worry - what if the paper jams?!!

[excelinnovator]

It is made from plastic not paper, using 3D Printing process also known as Additive manufacturing. In future, as technology advances, such vehicles will be made with carbon fiber composites, better plastics and even metal alloys that too in faster time, cheaper and in highly customized designs. Image courtesy: Local Motors and 3dprint.com.

[mrbaddy]

Read this interesting article on ACI website about Local Motors showcased a 3D printed car.

At the recent Detroit motor show, printed car pioneer Local Motors did just that - they printed a car at its stand, with the aim of driving it away at the end of the show. And just to prove that they weren’t kidding, they showed one they’d made earlier too.

The theory behind the 3D printed car is so compelling that it forces you, at least at first, to put to one side some of the thornier issues that may thwart it becoming a commercial reality.

“It’s all about the tooling,” the positively evangelical Elle Shelley, Local Motors’ chief marketing officer told our sister publication Autocar UK. “Guess how many parts this car has,” she insists, pointing at the car they call the Strati.

“Forty-seven,” she says. “A conventional car has 35,000.”

If the Local Motors dream comes true, it will work like this: the world will become populated by so-called micro-factories, all printing cars that are not only crowd-funded but also crowd-designed. People enter competitions locally, a winning design is selected and that’s what gets printed. “You don’t need to make a million cars before returning a profit to your investors,” says Shelley. “You’ll turn a profit on 1,000 cars.”

Moreover, while it might take five years or more for a conventional car manufacturer to design a new car, the Strati went from an idea to being driveable in just five months, albeit with a little help from the powertrain and running gear of a Renault Twizy.

It takes 44 hours to print, using carbonfibre-reinforced plastic, a couple of hours to mill the resulting rough surfaces into something smoother, and then perhaps a day to clip all the panels together “like Lego”, as Shelley describes it.

Unlike owners of normal cars who can only either sell or keep the car they have bought, if you then get bored with your car’s design, you just take it back to the factory, where it will be melted down and turned into something else. They call it ‘upgradeable hardware’.

The Strati is not actually a production car, although Local Motors says that something similar but with proper weather equipment, will be in production before the end of year, for “between $18,000 (approximately Rs 11.37 lakh) and $30,000 (approximately Rs 18.95 lakh)”. It weighs less than 750kg, which doesn’t sound like much, but is actually half as much as the Twizy, that lends its battery, electric motor and suspension. Then again, you can power it by pretty much anything that fits – up to and including, says Shelley, “the Porsche engine we’re working on”.

Source: Link

Mods: I tried searching, but could not find any other thread on 3D printing. Please merge if this belongs in any other thread.

[Mad Max]

Wow! I was dreaming of this day and it has come. How exciting it would be to move away from traditional manufacturers and get a designer to do your car! I understand the underlying complexities of engineering but I am sure there's always another innovation just around the corner for that too.

I wonder how the legalities of this would work though. Overall, a very promising start. And with 47 parts, yeah!

[swiftdiesel]

Pardon my ignorance but what is 3D printing? Is it like photographic prints but with added depth and dimension? Can I photograph my car and 3D print it? Don't see the point though.

[Mad Max]

The best place to find the answer is the internet.

Here's the Howstuffworks.com link

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/3-d-printing.htm

Enjoy!

[desiaztec]

3D printing is a manufacturing process based on addition of plastic in layers which ultimately forms into the desired shape/design.

Logic behind it is simple; a plastic wire of a particular colour is fed through an injector which has an in built incinerator. The molten plastic is injected onto a bed layer by layer. The injector moves in such a manner that molten plastic is injected exactly how it has been programmed to.

In a nutshell, someone wants to print an egg, the injector starts oozing out plastic on one particular co-ordinate an then goes onto another co-ordinate ultimately reaching the last co-ordinate thereby finishing the whole process. Easy ;-)

[Jeroen]

A couple of friends and me invested in a small 3D printer about a year ago. Its with my friends in the Netherlands and I haven't got my hands on it yet. We bought it to see if we could produce small parts for our classic parts. Some of these parts are becoming difficult tomsource. Think of clips, washers etc. fairly simple shapes.

So far the results have been mixed. So for instance, we managed to print a clip for retaining door cards. Although the shape is fine, we found that we just could not get the elasticity required for this part. Its easy to produce very simple things, like spacers etc.

So, its good fun to experiment, but these simple3D printer have limitations on the material specification. E.g. Flexibility, rigidity, temperature resistance.

Ours is simple 3D printer. cost around euro 1400. Not cheap, but to put in context, the price of a nice high end bicycle.

Jeroen

[100kmph]

In the Wheeler Dealers 100th episode Edd China made a lamp housing for fitting LEDs in a Darracq Car which had originally wick lamps. The process was shown briefly. It was for a 109 year old car.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Although the shape is fine, we found that we just could not get the elasticity required for this part.

So, its good fun to experiment, but these simple3D printer have limitations on the material specification. E.g. Flexibility, rigidity, temperature resistance.

You have hit the nail.
I have always been a little skeptic about the 3D printing - especially for engineering load parts - and your example just supports my doubts.
How would one ensure that the desired mechanical properties required for a part (say yield strength, young's modulus, poisson's ratio etc) will be met by the substance being used for 3D printing.

I am sure till we come up with portable furnaces, we won't be able to use metals for 3D printing. And let's say even if we do - the properties of direct cast metal is very different from the properties of (heat) treated metal.

Of course if we have (or are developing) plastics that have properties similar (or perhaps even superior) to metals like iron - then we indeed have a bright future!

[desiaztec]

Originally Posted by alpha1

You have hit the nail.
I have always been a little skeptic about the 3D printing - especially for engineering load parts - and your example just supports my doubts.
How would one ensure that the desired mechanical properties required for a part (say yield strength, young's modulus, poisson's ratio etc) will be met by the substance being used for 3D printing.

I am sure till we come up with portable furnaces, we won't be able to use metals for 3D printing. And let's say even if we do - the properties of direct cast metal is very different from the properties of (heat) treated metal.

Of course if we have (or are developing) plastics that have properties similar (or perhaps even superior) to metals like iron - then we indeed have a bright future!

Alpha1,

You will be surprised to know that doctors have already developed dentures, prosthetic legs and arms for amputees (yes you guessed it right: for Humans), Stents for heart and these are put to use in the developed part of the world. People have also developed actual working guns out these cheap 3D printers.

Regarding flexibility, Im sure there must be certain parameters to meet flexibility, rigidity and durability aspects. AFAIK, plastic used is ABS kind.

Its possibilities are endless, you have an idea, program it, and print it.

[Jeroen]

Our little 3D printer was probably one of the very first models to have hit the consumer market. So Im not surprised at its limitations. As pointed out, 3D printing on a more industrial, high end printer, is already taking place. Lots of ways to control not just the shape, but also the various properties you are looking for in the end product. We just bought ours as we are a bit nerdy and wanted to experiment a bit. If anything the experience is setting us up to buy a more advanced model in a few years, when the prices start coming down. And I have no doubt they will come down and we will see 3D printers enter many household, ie the consumer space in due course.

Im equally sure there will always be limitations as to what you can produce with this technique, as with any production technique. Every material has a variety, but limited way of shaping its form and or properties.

Jeroen

[excelinnovator]

3D Printing is rapidly developing field with innovations emerging daily. This field was constrained by patents held by few companies which are slowly expiring and new startup companies are coming up. Research is underway to 3d print most mechanically complex metal alloy jet engines. GE, Rolls Royce, Boeing and Airbus consider 3d printing to be strategic area. 3d printing is what is called 'disruptive' innovation. It will upend all kinds of manufacturing industries including food, medicine, simple and complex objects to housing construction! See this experiment of 3d printed concept car in Singapore. 3d printing will change automotive design, development, manufacturing, servicing, recycling and ownership in fundamental ways.

[psankar]

http://3dprint.com/50265/3d-printed-...-transmission/

A man named Eric Harrell has reverse engineered a 5-speed transmission for a Toyota 22RE Engine, and 3D printed an entire working replica on his desktop 3D printer. Even though it is made up almost entirely of plastic, he says that it could function as a replacement for the real thing. In all it took about 48 hours of print time, plus many more in order to assemble the device. He has made the files available for anyone to download and print themselves for free.

[tsk1979]

http://3dprint.com/50265/3d-printed-...-transmission/

With 3D printers growing, its only a matter of time before we can print metals. What then? Print your own spare parts!?

Well, one mechanical engineer decided to try, and 3D printed the entire transmission for Toyota 22RE engine.

Its made of plastic, so it won't be replacing your aging transmission anytime soon, but the possibilities are endless.

I am thinking, there are so many silly fiddly plasticky bits in high end cars, which cost an arm and a leg. With 3D printing going mainstream, say goodbye to the A/C knob for 2000 INR. Just get it printed for 1/10th of the price.

Manufacturer wanting 1000rs for a plastic wheel cover? Well print it for 100rs.

A video of the tranny in action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB34I33Bqrg

Since 3D printers are still expensive and rare, its somewhat expensive, but once the prices comes down, and metal-plastic hybrid printing goes mainstream, its going to be the brave new world.