What scope is there for 3D printing in the cycling world?

With 3D printers getting more affordable and with budget 3D scanners on the horizon, what fancy bits would you like to print? 🙂

seen the Charge bikes video on youtube?

Check this out.
http://dirt.mpora.com/news/the-carbon-dungeon-dirt-134.html

I rode with Adrian earlier this year, very interesting bloke, he told me of his plan to “print” a bike, and he did it.

That’s SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) and is a bit more costly!

Isn’t 3D printing done with plastic? So…..shifter internals….fork/shock internals…..light mounts? Not much else is there?

You have a choice of materials. Some are very strong. There videos of tools like adjustable spanners made that are pretty strong.

We’re decades off this being a viable productions this for high strength components. 3d printing methods have already taken 20 yrs to get where they are now. People are show boating with it now but the products are not suitable for any other than demonstrating the potential. You think about all the processing that occurs to an Al tube to get the differing properties and characteristics you need you’re not going to get that from SLS methods. Sintering is not a new process and only disk brake pad linings are sintered and maybe some suspension bushings, but no high strength parts. Small plastic parts maybe, or low strength metal parts, but the economics are not there. Via injection moulding and die casting you can churn out thousands of small components an hour. 3D printing is s…..l…….o………w……..

It is better suited to producing intricate parts in one go that are difficult to mould as a single part and have to be produced as multiple parts assemblies.

I’m planning on getting a 3d printer kit at the moment. As far as printing stuff directly it’s going to be limited to shims, spacers, etc. However, what you can do is print moulds and use them for lost wax casting in a home foundry.

So if, for example, I wanted to experiment with the shock linkages on my Nomad I could melt down some knackered alloy wheels and cast linkages that I had designed myself. And if they didn’t work I could melt them down and try again.

If you went old school aluminium you could even cast lugs and use adhesives to bond the aluminium (or steel or titanium) tubing to the lugs.

I think it’s all very exciting, at least from an experimenting in my garage point of view.

i’m not really sure why everyone seems to be getting so excited about 3d printing – it has existed for decades. i get parts done every now and then and basically they are only good enough for looking at, they won’t actually work as a part. and this is from a rapid prototype shop with millions of pounds of kit and 20 years of experience.

if you know the limitations then great, i suppose really the big deal is the fact a (small) SL machine is only a grand or so now so it it accessible to everyone, not 250k.

you wouldnt make production parts from SL, it takes far too long and an injection moulded part is orders of magnitude faster and cheaper to make.

So if, for example, I wanted to experiment with the shock linkages on my Nomad I could melt down some knackered alloy wheels and cast linkages that I had designed myself. And if they didn’t work I could melt them down and try again.

Home casting would be hit and miss at best unless you have a lot of previous experience, you would likely create a porous mess, especially for something complicated like a linkage. Even if it did look OK I wouldn’t want to ride it! – Just get it machined if you want to mess around with a linkage…

Additive manufacturing, 3d printing, sls, etc etc all similar ways to do things but very different in application as mentioned above.

Your £300.00 0.2mm accuracy plastic 3d printer wont make sintered titanium parts, that’s more like a 500k machine, but I bet you can have a lot of fun with it!

I am properly excited for the future of this type of manufacturing though! Cant wait for things to develop further though Jamie speaks a lot of truth in his post…

Plus the toner cartridges are a total rip off

clearly, additive manufacturing is the future. the other thing i suppose about an SL machine is it removes the need for lots of skill to operate – potentially you send your model to the machine and it whirrs away and make it for you. if we ever get to the point of having an affordable machine which can make useful structural parts which are actually useable then i think the whole manufacturing landscape might change completely. you could more or less customise everything you own. yourself.

Home casting would be hit and miss at best unless you have a lot of previous experience, you would likely create a porous mess, especially for something complicated like a linkage. Even if it did look OK I wouldn’t want to ride it! – Just get it machined if you want to mess around with a linkage…

Not sure why it would be hit and miss. Providing you use good quality aluminium and melt it down to ingots beforehand, you have good control of the temperatures, and you use good quality sand for the casting it should be fine. The linkages comparitively simple both for printing and casting.

Having things like that machined or buying the equipment to do it yourself would be very expensive. The equipment needed for printing and casting can be had for way below £800.

would a Reverb remote button not be a perfect application for home 3D printing? Some one get on it! 😉

Home casting is not suitable for high strength suspension linkages. They will be made from higher grade aluminium alloy that might not be suitable for home casting, and will be machined from forgings to get the mechanical properties. Also home casting is susceptable to pourosities and internal defects, you have no control over the micro structure. As a result you’d need to cast a compoenent with twice as much volume of material within it to stand half a chance which makes it not viable.

I think Jamie hit the nail on the head. There is alot of hype and nonsense going on around somehting that’s been around for 20yrs or more. OK, you can now get machines that are semi-affordable for the average Joe on the street, but all you can make are little trinkets. They’re certainly not available for any form of productionised manufacturing or to manufacture high strength parts from.

It’s already been done for lugs

http://www.ideas2cycles.com/index.php/prototypes/fixer

With magnesium as well which is just mental.

As far as high grade alloy goes, I’d imagine that a set of alloy wheels from the scrap yard would be pretty high grade.

Boo hiss to the naysayers – go forth and melt alloy and learn your own lessons.

Yup, I’m pefectly happy to accept failure but I’ll have fun doing it 🙂

Now I’m off to buy one of these:

http://www.charlies3dtechnologies.eu/Full_Prusa_Mendel_i2_kit_-_METRIC/p1675911_8888682.aspx

What scope is there for 3D printing in the cycling world?

custom bar end plugs?
headtube badges?
a funny shaped bell or a comedy horn?

personally, I’d steer clear of structural bits…

Could you make something like a bottle cage holder? Is it to brittle for that? Not sure what the max size is for a amateur printer. I’ve got a little project in mind..

I’ve been experimenting with it, trying printed stainless steel for custom braze-ons and the like. The potential as I see it is not to replace casting, but for items which it’s not economic to cast.

I’ve been experimenting with it, trying printed stainless steel for custom braze-ons and the like. The potential as I see it is not to replace casting, but for items which it’s not economic to cast.

Very few bicycle parts are cast though – forged yes and you wont ever replace a forged part with a 3d printed one in terms of its mechanical properties…

It is great for prototyping and having a bit of fun if that’s your thing though 🙂

I can see at time when the local currys just prints replacement parts when your widget handle breaks away from your latest dyson hoover etc… no more stock inventory or waiting for parts for weeks, sounds good to me.

ska-49 – Member

Could you make something like a bottle cage holder? Is it to brittle for that?

have you seen the dirt article?

look… closely

yep.

and you can make a lovely little screw-top tub for your pork pies.

We’re decades off this being a viable productions this for high strength components

you wouldnt make production parts from SL, it takes far too long and an injection moulded part is orders of magnitude faster and cheaper to make.

Go look on the charge website, they’ve ‘printed’ the dropouts for the new Ti bike.

Very few bicycle parts are cast though

Apart from most braze-ons, lugs, fork crowns, seat collars and dropouts? 😉

Since you can make parts from Ti, Stainless and Inconel, you could definitely make some bike parts with and SLM machine.

Whether it is economically viable for mass production is a different matter. (Metal powder is pretty expensive and you don’t end up with 100% of the powder in the parts)
The strength/ductiily of the parts is getting better all the time and is getting close to wrought in some cases.

Some examples of commercial systems.

http://www.eos.info/en
http://www.arcam.com/technology/electron-beam-melting/hardware/
http://www.renishaw.com/en/laser-melting-systems–15240

Get someone to do it for you.

http://www.shapeways.com

Having things like that machined or buying the equipment to do it yourself would be very expensive. The equipment needed for printing and casting can be had for way below £800.

So basically the cost of a milling machine. A machine that you could use to make the component without faffing about with a casting, and that you’ll probably require to finish off the casting in the first place to an acceptable tolerance anyway.

That’s a fair point.

I don’t have much experience of milling but can you machine lugs from a solid billett? Seems to me that casting would allow you to make more complex shapes. Plus there’s much less wastage and you can get your materials from scrap rather than having to buy new.

The real advantage of 3D printing, apart from the low one-off cost, is that you can make things that would be hard or impossible to machine or cast.

Apart from most braze-ons, lugs, fork crowns, seat collars and dropouts?

Aaah, you meant ‘vintage’ bikes 😉 (apart from fork crowns, I will give you that…)

The real advantage of 3D printing, apart from the low one-off cost, is that you can make things that would be hard or impossible to machine or cast.

+1
We’ve used shapeways at work and it’s bee a superb way to make small internally complex boxes to house equipment that would have been far harder, expensive and time-consuming to produce using conventional methods. Plus they do a fair bit of post-processing so the end product looks pretty professional rather than something made out of shrivelled spaghetti.

They need to come up with a metal a bit softer than their current bronze/stainless thing though, as that’s brutal to do any post-production work on!

I don’t have much experience of milling but can you machine lugs from a solid billett? Seems to me that casting would allow you to make more complex shapes.

You could make them out of billet, but as you imagine it’s going to be expensive and time consuming.
I’d imagine the same would be true of casting though, for different reasons. Unless you’re lost wax casting, you’re going to have to cast a lug as a solid lump then drill and bore all the internal cavities out afterwards. Even with lost wax casting, your going to have to bore the tube holes to size. And I imagine making a jig to hold a lug casting at the appropriate angle will be a complex job in itself. You also need to factor in going though a few iterations to work out what shrinkage factor you need as a casting will not come out the same size as your mould. Plus I’m not a metallurgist, but I’d imagine if you melt Aluminium alloys a lot of the alloying elements might precipitate out or clump together or do something that means your cast metal is not a strong alloy, but a fairly weak/brittle one.
Either way it’s a non-trivial exercise.
On the casting front, but on a different scale I saw this recently which impressed me as to what can be done, relatively easily.
http://makezine.com/2013/05/02/resin-casting-going-from-cad-to-engineering-grade-plastic-parts/

Aaah, you meant ‘vintage’ bikes (apart from fork crowns, I will give you that…)

I mean bikes made out of proper steel, not recycled Coke cans or plastic 😉

I’ve had glass filled SLS parts done. I’ve even had them bored out, tapped etc. Had valve end cap done, with a piston & seal running happily inside at 4 bar.

Unless you’re lost wax casting, you’re going to have to cast a lug as a solid lump then drill and bore all the internal cavities out afterwards. Even with lost wax casting, your going to have to bore the tube holes to size. And I imagine making a jig to hold a lug casting at the appropriate angle will be a complex job in itself. You also need to factor in going though a few iterations to work out what shrinkage factor you need as a casting will not come out the same size as your mould.

I was thinking that lost wax casting would be the way to go. Or in this case lost PLA. People who have been experimenting with it say that the shrinkage is actually the easiest thing to deal with. Once you’ve drawn the shape you want on your CAD program you simply use a scale up function to increase all the dimensions 3% (for Aluminium).

print a car

Rather than looking at the way technology is right now, extrapolate.

The future is interesting.

With current technology, I imagine it won’t be long before we see things along the lines of SKS creating an online, open source database to share mudguard mounts for specific frames. Maybe frame manufacturers will want to upload them, maybe the public will upload in the way the Google Skethup database was built.

So many combinations of guard, tyre clearance and frame/ fork design that it’d be daft to manufacture every one, but offering print files for download is pretty much free.

Extrapolate further – instead of buying a bike, you visit the Object Store online and download the latest Specialized to the 3D printer under your stairs – wait 15 minutes and you have a new bike.

And when you get bored with it, you can just put it back in to be broken down into it’s component atoms and reused.

IanMunro – Member

So basically the cost of a milling machine. A machine that you could use to make the component without faffing about with a casting,

Sure… But the hard bit to aquire isn’t the machine, it’s the skill to use it. Now I’ve not used a 3d printer but by all accounts they’re relatively easy to use. Whereas with £800, you might just about be able to do a small DIY CNC 3-axis mill but even then you’re still left with more complex design. More realistically you’ll be going manual and that’s a very different kettle of fish

Or put it another way… I’m a barely-competent machinist with a cheap mill and lathe, I can make simple things that work most of the time, and it takes ages. For the last parts I made, plastic would be a suitable material and it seems like it’d be a lot easier to do on a printer (as in, most people could do it, whereas if you give most people a mill and a bit of metal and leave them to jump in, they’ll make a lot of noise and mess then lose a finger)