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New 3D Printer Can Print With Carbon Fiber
cold fjord sends this news from Popular Mechanics:
"[M]aking custom racecar parts out of carbon fiber is daunting. The only real method available is CNC machining, an expensive and difficult process that requires laying pieces by hand. To improve the process, [Gregory Mark] looked to 3D printing. But nothing on the market could print the material, and no available materials could print pieces strong enough for his purposes. So Mark devised his own solution: the MarkForged Mark One, the world's first carbon fiber 3D printer. Mark debuted his Boston area-based startup MarkForged at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego with a working prototype. The Mark One can print in carbon fiber, fiberglass, nylon and PLA (a thermoplastic). ... The main advantage of the Mark One: It can print parts 20 times stiffer and five times stronger than ABS, according to the company. It even has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than CNC-machined aluminum. ... Mark says that he imagines this machine is for anybody who wants to print in a material as strong as aluminum. Beyond racecars, it could be useful to industries like prosthetics."
This is the first materials advance I've seen in ages, bar superficial things like the ability to make ridiculously expensive full-colour prototypes of things that need moulding to make en masse.
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"The only real method available is CNC machining, an expensive and difficult process that requires laying pieces by hand."
CNC means Computer Numerical Controlled, which isn't remotely similar to laying out sheets of resin-bonded carbon fiber by hand. Or are they forming blocks of fiber made out of a lot of bonded sheets, and then CNC-milling them into shapes? That seems like a pointless waste. Very confusing sentence, there.
There are two ways carbon fiber is generally done...you can CNC a part (usually out of foam, sometimes wood) and then wrap it in carbon fiber, or for repeatability you can CNC a mold and hand lay the carbon fiber in that. Yes, the sentence was poorly written for the layperson, but if you've worked with composites before you'd know what it means.
Just you fucking wait.
We're half way to printing a Gallardo.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It may not have the strength of CF done properly, but it will be much stronger than the alternatives like ABS and PLA. There are plenty of applications where that "between" strength is useful. The claim is that it is stiffer and stronger than 6061 aluminum. That means you don't have to go into a machine shop to cut a bunch of 6061 aluminum- you can print a part and get similar characteristics. The 3D printer doesn't care how complex the design is- it will produce it at much lower cost than a machine shop full of mills and guys who know how to run them.