Printers. Most commonly seen making our lives a living hell and running out of ink, printers are more of a necessary annoyance than something to get really passionate about. But since the technology of 3D printing has become viable enough to be available at the market for relatively cheap it has given us a new world of possibilities, adding a new dimension to the world of printing ( this horrible horrible pun was completely intended.)
3D printing has been used to make anything from plastic figurines to put in your desk at work, to small turbines and even human organs. To say that the possibilities that 3D printing has opened are limitless would be nothing but accurate. You can even download and print a firearm now, to the chagrin of quite a few people. This is not limited to small items either, Even as you read this both Local Motors and KOR EcoLogic are both making efforts to make a 3D printed cars a reality. That’s where today’s question comes along.
If you can make a 3D printed car and the technology is getting cheaper and cheaper, surely it could also be used to help in the restoration of old metal. Chrome trim, badges, rearview mirrors, interior trim. Every single tiny piece that would be impossible to get anywhere now a CAD file and a printer away. Not just small parts either. Your Pontiac Tempest is missing its front grill and you can find are GTO reproduction kits? Just get it printed and forget about the purists. Of course, this would be dependent on the size of the printer you buy.
So what do you think, are 3D printers the saviors of old cars or merely a tech toy that got too popular?
Think of how much easier these will make ANY repair.
Now when a little part breaks on something, instead of buying an entirely new item, or dealing with hours of manuals and phone reps trying to reorder one impossible to describe part (looking at you dishwasher!!), I can put the broken piece in the scanner, edit, and voila, make a new one.
Or if you’re working on something and need some weird piece that doesn’t exist, make it! Just today I was trying to fix a broken trash can lid lever, and if I could have fabricated a washer with a 2 in arm attached I could have been done in 1 minute.
To answer the question at the end – of course 3D printer will be saviors of old cars, if the quality of the manufactured (printed) parts will be satisfactory, which it most likely will improve over time as the technology matures.
As for ‘purists’ – who cares, they are free to reject the new possibilities and continue to chase ‘real original’ parts if they so wish.
I do not care about this or that car being ‘collectible’ or ‘rare’ or ‘original’ or ‘matching numbers’ – all I care about is whether a certain car looks and performs to my liking and if I personally find it ‘cool’ or not.
+1. Originality is way over rated. A car (or anything, for that matter) is only new once. And history tends to “erase” how bad cars of the ’60’s really were. Especially the muscle cars. The ones with the really top shelf engines were essentially hand built, and barely ran when new. I know a guy who spent his career at GM, the Fremont plant, and he was head of a special team in the ’60’s that did nothing but tune these assembly line freaks just so they could drive themselves onto the hauler. Then it was the dealers problem.
I have a fair amount of experience with these printers in my work in R&D, mostly with the ABS plastic deposition variety of 3D printer that is most often associated with the hobbyists . For certain applications like some sort of plastic clip under the hood I could see their use, or some sort of interior trim piece that can be coated to cover the surface finish. The current practical limit on resolution inherent to the deposition systems makes surface finish a bit of a problem, unless you do some surface treatment with a solvent like acetone. The structural integrity of the plastic parts is also questionable, again depending on the application.
I think what would be more useful to car guys is the proliferation of affordable and easy to use CNC mills. Having recently plunged myself into the world of CNC milling, the power of drawing a CAD design, creating some toolpaths, and then having a mill crank a machined metal part out is truly a powerful incredible and never ceases to amaze me.
I’ve been telling my classic car restoring friends that this will be huge, especially as the 3D printing materials technologies advance. Replacement dash panels, knobs, tail light lenses, all those impossible to find bits.
And think of the Fiero-arri-ghini possibilities when you can print your own body panels…on second thought, never mind, no good can come of this.
3d printing is another hobby I’d like to have if I had more time. Money’s less of an issue though — $1,000 for a pretty high-end one, and as low as $400 for a 1-color kit. If you want to try a different technology, then it’s as cheap as $100 (!!) for one that uses a laser to set a liquid resin (rather than extruding a thermoplastic). Google “Peachy Printer”. It uses the output from a computer (or phone!) sound card to control the laser via a vibrating mirror, and the z-axis is controlled by floating the resin on a bath of salt water, and slowly raising the water level as the piece is created. Pretty darn inventive, in the way Henry Ford was. None of it’s exactly new, but is a unique combination of approaches. Peachy Printer link
I spent a bit of time looking into this. If I can’t find/make a suitable replacement for some plastic door handle gaskets and trim clips that I need for my restoration project, I’ll get some 3D-printed. I wouldn’t buy my own 3D printer for this. There are enough places now that will print from supplied CAD files.
In some respects, 3D printing is in its infancy, especially when it comes to units you can buy for 3D printing plastics at home. The software lacks some features it should have to wait for the current layer to cool/dry before starting the next layer. It also matters what direction you slice the 3D model in for printing. You need to tweak your model to account for shrinkage as the plastic dries. It takes a long time to actually get good at 3D printing.
Imagine being able to get all the tiny bits of trim for obscure cars.
For some parts yes, for others it will likely be more difficult.
An obvious application would be plastic taillight lenses. A season or two ago Counting Cars was restoring the Old Man’s Imperial (of Pawn Stars fame) and one of the more tech oriented employees suggested using a 3D Printer to recreate the taillight lenses. Kount vetoed the idea deciding to use NOS pieces. Had the NOS not been available for love nor money, 3D printing would have been the only option.
+1 on the lensware. My biggest worry when considering a CC purchase.
From what I recall on that particular episode, the NOS Imperial taillight lens’ were $1000/each and the employee said the 3D printed versions could have been had for something like $400/each. It’s a shame they didn’t at least try it, just to see how good the printed versions turned out compared to the real things.
For trim and non-structural items, this is a great idea.
When reading this, the first thing that came to mind was suspension pieces and various brackets for holding on alternators, power steering pumps, etc. Provided the quality of material used is adequate for the job, I’m all for it and think this process will provide a terrific avenue for those needing hard to find parts. Need a set of motor mounts and a brake drum for your ’32 DeSoto? No problem!
Structurally sound parts are possible with direct metal sintering. Solid Concepts ( http://hexus.net/tech/news/peripherals/62261-direct-metal-laser-sintering-used-3d-print-working-metal-pistol/ ) has produced a working .45 caliber pistol with the process.
Jay Leno’s been doing this for years. Pop Mech article from 2009 here.
That’s a good article that goes into greater depth on how 3D printing applies to maintaining old, obscure vehicles.
I can’t say I was a fan of Leno on the Tonight Show (he was a whole lot funnier as a stand-up and guest on Letterman), but as an auto buff, I appreciate the things he’s done for the hobby. While it’s mostly autos, he really seems to love the engineering and design of mechanical things and has used his riches to not only acquire the machines, but also to maintain them (all of them) in proper working order, and embracing the 3D printing technology can do nothing but advance the ability to keep vehicles running that would otherwise simply sit and deteriorate.
I wouldn’t drive a paper car. How in the world can objects be printed?
Sorry, did you read the article? It’s plastic. No paper here. And there are various different processes for actually forming these objects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing
Please tell me you’re making a joke, or you’ve not been online in the past few years AND have absolutely no idea how to use a search engine…
http://bit.ly/1jAYPgu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing
It was a joke. I know it’s not paper, but I was still in the dark on it until reading this article. Don’t get your panties in a wad.
I admittedly don’t understand the technology, so forgive my ignorance on the subject, but there’s certain finishes and materials I have a difficult time imagining being printed. Chrome, for example? One of the biggest reasons to get NOS stuff like emblems and trim pieces is the only chrome is pitted, tarnished or damaged, which if repaired could result in the chrome peeling. So you might be able to print out a new emblem made out of *something* I have to imagine it would still require plating after the fact which wouldn’t be much(or any at all) cheaper than simply restoring the old pieces themselves.
I know a little about it, but I’m sure there are others on here who know more. It’s an additive process, and the object is built by having the 3D printer build up whatever material is loaded into it (assuming the printer is designed to use that material).
With a chrome piece, I would think that with current technology the piece would be made of a base metal, then plated as was done with the original.
But who knows? The technology is advancing so quickly that perhaps it’s possible – or soon it will be – to have a steel piece printed, then have the printer lay down a layer of chrome.
The other type of printing technology, that has much smoother finishes and higher resolution is SLA, and it basically uses a laser to crosslink polymers in layers in a liquid bath of polymers. A stage is slowly lowered as each layer is complete. But this is rather pricey and not currently in the realm of hobbyists.
You can cold chrome plastics too, so making an emblem is child’s play. Of course, printing in metal is also possible.
KJ
Cost isn’t the only factor. If a part is extremely scarce then printing becomes a practical alternative.
Unless I’m mistaken, “NOS” is an abbreviation for New Old Stock, meaning an old part which has been sitting in storage since new.
Or It means you’ve hooked your car up to nitrous oxide. Hehehe
This is going to become an absolute necessity for those who keep truly antique, rare automobiles (yeah, Jay Leno is a step or two ahead of us – he’s rich enough to be able to). Every try to find parts for a Bugatti Type 35 (which is an incredibly common Bugatti)? For the most part, they don’t exist. Period. At which point you start manufacturing your own.
Which has always been done, of course, but in a long time-consuming method of manually machining a part from a paper blueprint by use of a lathe. All 3-D printing does is simplify the method. The big advance is when you can go from plastic to wood, metal, or whatever other material the original part was made of. And do it without having to buy one of those mega-bucks CNC setups so beloved of the custom wheel crowd.
“PC Load Letter? WTF does that mean?”
Sorry, had to do it 🙂
Of course I’d prefer the real deal whenever possible. It bugs me to know that, in a world of repop parts, there are bound to be details that will be lost to history.
Some things are documented well enough that there’ll never be any question. But for other things, I have my doubts. Once there’s no one left to remember how an original looked, it won’t be long before the most commonly substituted style gets molded into “that’s how they all were”.
(Consider how many people have never seen the base model, 6-cylinder, non-hood-striped version of many models best known for their muscle packages. It’s not much of a stretch to worry that certain elements of such cars would be forgotten in time… even moreso for those models that have a much smaller and less dedicated following.)
That being said, I’m not opposed to such options as 3D printing of difficult/unobtainable parts. If dealing with some obscure need, I’d much rather have a knockoff than be stuck and unable to complete the job… a situation that happens today, and will only become more common in the years to come.
I just hope having such conveniences doesn’t cause the old car world to become spoiled, lazy, and too willing to toss aside the real stuff (why fix that x, when I could just print another?).
I would imagine that it making moulds and casting patterns for limited runs of parts that can’t really be printed ATM much cheaper and easier!
I was recently surprised to see that Walmart Canada offered (a limited stock of) 3D printers on it’s website. Having worked in the manufacturing field for a short time, I’m actually intrigued by this new technology. In previous jobs I have used software to convert CAD drawings into programs for a flame cutting machine and CNC punch press. It was neat to see drawings come to life, but they were mostly longer production runs.
The 3D printer can probably produce prototypes and one off parts more effectively. This technology has been very useful in Medical Science to create organs. So creating rare parts for cars should be easily achieved. I just see it as a great advantage for inventors or hobbyists, plus the DIY guy who likes to fix stuff and needs parts.
Of course the technology will keep getting better and better and cheaper and cheaper and thus more and more useful.
Here is what is going on on the space station now: http://singularityhub.com/2014/11/27/made-in-space-transports-and-replicates-first-3d-printed-object-on-space-station/