- Thread starter Bluemotion
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Id guessed Hardly Ableson
Bluemotion
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Neither! Can’t reveal
Bluemotion
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Ok so I posted some pics for everyone to see, if it was made of carbon fibre then what time scale would each item (both sections F&R) take to make from start to finish including trimming off at the end and fitting (or moulding in) any location lugs? (I don’t want an eight hour day on each item for example as it just isn’t worth my time.)
stuvy
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Yep and a sintered one
Wouldnt a carbon manufacturer be the person to ask ,, hardly a welding job.
If your going down the pre preg route the costs involved will get crazy very quickly , if your doing wet lay by hand it may as well be glass fiber ,, pre preg carries a premium but your going to need to be rattling out a lot of them to cover costs let alone make money. I personally dont buy carbon unless its the real deal , and since I stopped riding exotic Italian bikes the whole weight saving side of things means nothing to me anymore . Id really research your market and target the product at the customer , you seem to be making something at the moment because you can , actually cant hence the out sourcing , id guess the profit will vanish in the manufacturing and they will be the only folk who come out with a turn bike parts are very niche and thats the drawback . Some big names have bitten the dust and they had big numbers and Chinese manufacturing with a huge customer base and a demographic that didnt mind spending on adventure / touring bikes. Wunderlich and BMW are the names that spring to mind ,,, if you truly believe your product is in that league ..... go for it .
Not trying to p*ss on your chips ,,, just thinking out loud. ,
PhillipM
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SLS is sintering...
And why wouldn't you use that for a production part? PC/ABS copolymer or Nylon 12 off those machines is usually ~95% of the properties of an injection moulded one, even fatigue isn't that much lower apart from for tiny parts.
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It's slow isn't it? And therefore expensive.
In my reply saying 3d printing won't hold up to abuse I had FDM in mind, thinking it was an at-home project.
Bluemotion
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@tom2207 yes it’s a welding forum but we all do other things too as you know. Someone will have links to these things and there’s plenty of bikers on here that are ‘tinkers’. I’m not in any way influenced by carbon fibre as it’s just a fashion thing how I see it with no meaning. It’s a way forward that’s all and springs to mind when looking for answers. I’d be happy with plastic but if it’s low volume I end up needing then the setting up of needed plastic moulding gear will kill the job even before it starts.
hotponyshoes
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I'll see if I can dig some photos out of making carbon fibre parts in a minute as it's certainly possible to diy that yourself to a decent standard.
I don't know anything about motorbikes so I don't really have any idea of how tough these things need to be, But, I have been successfully making and using horseshoes and tool type things that I have 3d printed from tpu filament
Now, that's not as tough as say the impregnated rubber type stuff you would make rally car mudflaps out of but it's tough enough to take some decent abuse. I would think it would be ok for a scrambler type bike. It's possibly a bit flexible/rubbery for a mudguard that size but I have no idea what it's like in large sizes as I am limited by the size of my printer.
If you have a 3d model of this thing I could print you out a scaled down version but I don't know how much that would help as I don't know how the stuff behaves when scaled up again?
It's entirely possible that there are filaments available that would be far better suited as well. I know carbon filaments are available and I expect a search on ebay will find somebody selling samples of various ones.
Going off your number of 100,
A quick Google suggests printers with a 500mm build area are available for under £1k.
A guess would suggest that 500g of filament would be ample for that? So £15
Electric, printer mantainance, call it £5
I don't know what sort of print speeds a current model, sub £1k printer would achieve but going off my 5yr old £100 printer this is going to be the issue.
My maximum capacity is 130mm and the biggest print I have done so far was 40hrs.
I can easily see that taking a week on my machine if it had the capacity to take it.
On prints that long you would want to purchase a ups in case of power cuts and probably allow 50% extra time to cover print failures.
But, if you could make one a week direct costs are going to be maybe £30 each delivered to the customer.
If you can sell one a week for £100 and in 3 months time you have a 1 month waiting list you have generated enough income to buy a second printer and double production.
I know a £100 price is a way off the £300 you were talking about but (guessing again) I would say that's the most you will get for a 3d printed part (and the quality of finish you can achieve with one) unless you have some £50k+ printer and are knocking them out in something really fancy.
There are plenty of places online where you can upload models and they will print them out and post them to you. I have never tried any so I don't know what sort of filaments or prices they offer but if you had a 3d model it would be an easy way to see if it was easy to find somewhere to print something that size for a start.
If they can do a single one for £50 with a 4 day delivery time then that would suggest you might be able to do it yourself for £25 and print one every 2 days.
Or, you might just buy from them at £50, re-lable the box when it gets delivered and post it back out for £100.
I don't know anything about motorbikes so I don't really have any idea of how tough these things need to be, But, I have been successfully making and using horseshoes and tool type things that I have 3d printed from tpu filament
Now, that's not as tough as say the impregnated rubber type stuff you would make rally car mudflaps out of but it's tough enough to take some decent abuse. I would think it would be ok for a scrambler type bike. It's possibly a bit flexible/rubbery for a mudguard that size but I have no idea what it's like in large sizes as I am limited by the size of my printer.
If you have a 3d model of this thing I could print you out a scaled down version but I don't know how much that would help as I don't know how the stuff behaves when scaled up again?
It's entirely possible that there are filaments available that would be far better suited as well. I know carbon filaments are available and I expect a search on ebay will find somebody selling samples of various ones.
Going off your number of 100,
A quick Google suggests printers with a 500mm build area are available for under £1k.
A guess would suggest that 500g of filament would be ample for that? So £15
Electric, printer mantainance, call it £5
I don't know what sort of print speeds a current model, sub £1k printer would achieve but going off my 5yr old £100 printer this is going to be the issue.
My maximum capacity is 130mm and the biggest print I have done so far was 40hrs.
I can easily see that taking a week on my machine if it had the capacity to take it.
On prints that long you would want to purchase a ups in case of power cuts and probably allow 50% extra time to cover print failures.
But, if you could make one a week direct costs are going to be maybe £30 each delivered to the customer.
If you can sell one a week for £100 and in 3 months time you have a 1 month waiting list you have generated enough income to buy a second printer and double production.
I know a £100 price is a way off the £300 you were talking about but (guessing again) I would say that's the most you will get for a 3d printed part (and the quality of finish you can achieve with one) unless you have some £50k+ printer and are knocking them out in something really fancy.
There are plenty of places online where you can upload models and they will print them out and post them to you. I have never tried any so I don't know what sort of filaments or prices they offer but if you had a 3d model it would be an easy way to see if it was easy to find somewhere to print something that size for a start.
If they can do a single one for £50 with a 4 day delivery time then that would suggest you might be able to do it yourself for £25 and print one every 2 days.
Or, you might just buy from them at £50, re-lable the box when it gets delivered and post it back out for £100.
hotponyshoes
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Diy injection moulding is possible to do at home as well.
The main issues are the temperatures involved.
These are going to be ditactated by what temp the part is subject to when in use.
Ie, is it mounted near an exhaust outlet.
For stuff that's not going to see over 40c then polymorph type granules can be extruded easily through a nozzle made from a soldering iron and driven through by a screw powered off a cordless drill.
Once set that stuff is about the same as nylon in stiffness and toughness.
One advantage of the low melting point is that the mold does not need to be that special. You could even make an inner and outer mold and just fill it with softened material before clamping the 2 halves togeather.
The target market (ie. the standard of finish that you require) is going to have a direct impact on the cost of setup though.
Costs will rise rapidly when going from a Fibreglass mold and Clamps at £50 to a polished steel thing at £5k.
But, that's whats going to change what you get for the finished product from £50 to £300.
One advantage with high set-up costs and complicated processes is it stops the first bloke who buys one taking a mold from it and knocking out another batch in his garage to undercut you with!
The main issues are the temperatures involved.
These are going to be ditactated by what temp the part is subject to when in use.
Ie, is it mounted near an exhaust outlet.
For stuff that's not going to see over 40c then polymorph type granules can be extruded easily through a nozzle made from a soldering iron and driven through by a screw powered off a cordless drill.
Once set that stuff is about the same as nylon in stiffness and toughness.
One advantage of the low melting point is that the mold does not need to be that special. You could even make an inner and outer mold and just fill it with softened material before clamping the 2 halves togeather.
The target market (ie. the standard of finish that you require) is going to have a direct impact on the cost of setup though.
Costs will rise rapidly when going from a Fibreglass mold and Clamps at £50 to a polished steel thing at £5k.
But, that's whats going to change what you get for the finished product from £50 to £300.
One advantage with high set-up costs and complicated processes is it stops the first bloke who buys one taking a mold from it and knocking out another batch in his garage to undercut you with!
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Crushed PLA can be squeezed through a hot nozzle using a drill bit too, never thought to use it for injection moulding though, I might try that.
That was supposed to squirt out lovely new PLA filament from blended up old prints but without controlling the tension on the extruded string it just made a big plastic spaghetti mess.
I can print PC-ABS on the FDM Stratasys printers
