Yes, surely you could get pretty close to the same level of customisation by just mass producing lugs with a range of angles, using a cheaper process (basically extending what they must have done anyway for all previous lug and tube designs). 3D printing seems a bit of a gimmick in this application.

Nope.

Lugs were only available for road bikes because they’re very expensive to make the molds for, and road bikes are pretty fixed geometry wise (horizontal top tube, 73deg parallel angles, etc) so you only need a very small number of parts to make any kind of frame. There’s a couple of degrees of wiggle in each lug to allow slight variations for frame size, or Track Vs touring bikes etc, but that’s all.

Builders like Demon frameworks make MTB lugs by brasing bits of oversize tube together, which is nowhere near as strong as an actual lug, but is very pretty.

A mate of mine was 3D printing steel lugs and then getting steel brazed into them. Ended up deciding it was too expensive and too much faff so he’s gone to full carbon monocoque.

The concept of tubes and lugs is not new but using the latest manufacturing buzz words and charging crazy high prices does get you press coverage.

Ended up deciding it was too expensive and too much faff so he’s gone to full carbon monocoque.

How can a lug be stronger than full carbon anyhow? That’s the bit I don’t get, or is it the fact that for a custom carbon bike you need to make carbon tubes the same length and cut them to custom size, and then you need to be able to join them?

I assume making carbon tubes and then joining them with carbon fibre doesn’t work that well?

3d printed moulds for a custom carbon frame would be nice, but it would look like an off the shelf jobbie, so less headlines than this, so probably less interest.

I’ve no idea if it was stronger or not, it was just one of the manufacturing avenues he experimented with.

Lots of off the shelf frames are carbon tubes and carbon lugs, especially hardtails where they all use the same rear end. Make 1 rear and glue it to any number of different front ends, over wrap one layer of carbon to make it look nice and you’re done.

Carbon Wasp do 3D printed moulds and lay carbon into them, finished product looks really good.

AM lugs and Carbon tubes is quite a good manufacturing idea. As long as the bonds are strong and the double lap joints seems a sensible idea to stop peel.

I think the only technology they’ve missed a trick with is some topology optimisation. I’m sure they could have come up with some really funky looking organic shapes with a properly optimised solution. This would have added to the aesthetic that I feel this bike is missing a little. To me it looks like all the parts are drawn in CAD from the start.

But I suppose the topology optimisation wouldn’t lend itself to customised geometry, a lot of processing for each frame. Although it could have been used for some ‘generic’ starting blocks.

Good luck to them. I’m sure the design and processes will refine as time goes on.

How can a lug be stronger than full carbon anyhow?

your missing the point its not strongest its whats strong enough to do the job and then keep us out of the internet horror failure stories ,sometimes this is often enough to meet the design requirements (only robot will know THEIR objectives) if your going for stongest thats forged heat treated then machined then heated a bit more and some kind of surface finishing, a wee bit more cost than 3d printing a titanium lug.

theres always been lots of moves in engineering to cut costs, however sometimes people misconsturue removing tooling as a cost saver

if you make a mould and a part that costs 300 notes total part lifecycle then make 1 component that’s printed at 300 notes total part lifecycle its still cost you 300 notes and thats where the cost of 3d printing sits at this time its not particularly cheap.

If you work in the industrys where these bits and bobs are becoming common even aerospace parts aren’t being used for their strength a lot however do enable parts to be made with less labour for example no welds or fixturing

when the price drops to a level suitable for production and the strength comes up then you will probably find these boxes alongside cnc in a workshop banging out parts, CNC was a novelty 30 years ago and now we have a 5 axis for less than 80k

This illustrates the straight forwards way of doing “custom carbonfibre” quite nicely IMO:
[video]https://youtu.be/22AnlUprKs0[/video]

You can do variations on it but that’s your basic method there…

I’ve not seen carbon compressed like that before, very interesting.

Looks like they have a stand at Fort Bill this weekend. If anyone is up there, could you put up a few ‘real world’ photos of it???

Did anyone at the WC see it – thoughts???