Team-BHP - See how Jay Leno prints spare parts for his vintage collection!

- - See how Jay Leno prints spare parts for his vintage collection! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/61469-see-how-jay-leno-prints-spare-parts-his-vintage-collection.html)

Jay Leno has a lot of old cars with a lot of obsolete parts. When he needs to replace these parts, he skips the error-prone machinist and goes to his rapid prototyping 3D printer. Simply scan, print and repeat. Read on..

Jay Leno?s 3D Printer Makes Old Car Parts - NextEngine 3D scanner and Dimension 3D printer - Popular Mechanics

Its not a CNC machine. Its just a Rapid Prototyping machine. He's not actually making parts he can use with them. All it does is scan the part and build up a mould of it, which then has to be sent off to a machinist to be made into an actual part. Almost every automobile manufacture will have one of these. Ive seen the one at Landrover/Jaguar run and its really amazing. I guess when you have money, you can buy anything. Amazing bit of kit, i guess every restorers dream toy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rahulkool (Post 1378463)

isn't that machines called CNC ......

And I would be shocked if Jay knew CAD more so if he would be making them himself.

What if all I have is a worn out part?

@narayan - good question. And there is a war going on in consumerist circles about excluding automobile parts from purview of "intellectual property".

CNC machines are still needed if the final part need to be done in metal. Otherwise, if the original part was plastic, then obviously the part coming out of the Dimension printer can be used directly.

What I found more interesting : Before he got the machines, Jay Leno used to outsource some of the part making to India! In the video, he mentions that he had to source some parts for the Dusenbergs from India. I do hope machinists folks still have some work here; hope it doesn't become a dying art.

@Spadival- Agreed CNC machining would still be required for such obsolete parts. I am not that shocked by outsourcing this to India. Mostly this can be done in Germany/ neighboring countries or India if cheap labor is Intended. Many states such as Gujarat/ Maharashtra are good at such productions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1self (Post 1380381)

Errr...cost of that machine? A few hundred thousand dollars?

Not in the hundreds of thousands.. But the cost below does not include the raw materials and the cost of the CNC machine.

Quote:

The NextEngine scanner costs $2995. The Dimension uPrint Personal 3D printer is now under $15,000. That’s not cheap. But this technology used to cost 10 times that amount. And I think the price will come down even more.