Ford Motor Firm has leveraged SLA and SLS 3D printing expertise from Formlabs to prototype a sequence of parts within the improvement of its Electrical Explorer automobile.
The automotive large was one of many first beta customers of Formlabs’ Type 4, deploying the expertise at its Ford Cologne services in Germany, the place its engineers even have entry to a Type 3L and Fuse 1+ 30W machine.
Among the many components to be prototyped with Formlabs 3D printing expertise are a posh charging port, a canopy for the charging port, a rearview mirror meeting, dashboard components and exterior options. The corporate additionally 3D printed insert moulds for the injection moulding of two rubber parts, required within the door deal with design for his or her damping and insulation capabilities.
Ford Cologne is greatest recognized for assembling the Ford Fiesta mannequin and, in step with Ford’s ambitions to promote completely electrical autos (EVs) in Europe by 2030, has additionally entered the Discover mannequin into serial manufacturing on the Cologne meeting plant. Adjoining to this manufacturing facility, PD Merkenich serves as a improvement centre and is accountable for designing all passenger autos for the European market. PD Merkenich was utilizing SLA 3D printing expertise as early as 1994 and has since expanded its fleet to incorporate FDM, SLS and metallic 3D printing applied sciences.
The newest 3D printer to be built-in into PD Merkenich’s operations is the Type 4, which Ford says is permitting engineers to fulfil extra requests in below 24 hours.
“The Type 4 could be very quick,” stated Bruno Alves, Additive Manufacturing Professional and Tooling Specialist at Ford. “I feel it’s the greatest machine that I’ve seen till now by way of velocity. It’s actually an excellent improve in comparison with the earlier fashions. It’s simpler to function, so it’s a lot simpler for the operators in our workshop to learn to work with the machine and get components with good high quality.”
“Working with Type 4, it’s actually a game-changer,” added Sandro Piroddi, Supervisor of PD Merkenich’s Speedy TechnologyCenter at Ford. “The velocity of the printer will change our workflow. We will ship extra components, the throughput is greater. We’re far more versatile if we’ve got short-time requests. We will do these utilizing Type 4.”
Formlabs’ Type 3L, in the meantime, has allowed Ford to prototype giant parts like exterior physique components, with the Fuse SLS expertise enabling the testing of mechanical components, such because the charging port cowl.
“The Type 3L allows us to print massive components; for instance, exterior physique components for the automobile,” provided Alves. “We printed this mirror cap to validate a design. 3D printing is appropriate for this utility as a result of it’s quick and we will have superb high quality in comparison with mass manufacturing components.
“For this charging cowl, it was essential to make use of SLS, based mostly on the truth that we would have liked a practical half that will allow us to check the mechanisms. It’s a realty advanced design that we aren’t capable of produce in any value approach. We can’t mill this half. We can’t use injection moulding to simply produce some samples. So, the easiest way is to print in a cloth that we will take a look at bodily.”
Having achieved this success with prototyping, Ford engineers additionally sought to mix the capabilities of 3D printing with injection moulding to provide crash take a look at components. These parts have to be produced from the identical materials and course of as in mass manufacturing, that means the components have been at all times going to be manufactured with injection moulding. Ford noticed the potential, nonetheless, in leveraging 3D printing for speedy tooling, producing the mould inserts for the rubber door deal with meeting components in weeks relatively than months.
“We see a whole lot of potential utilizing 3D printing inserts for injection moulding based mostly on the truth that we will iterate the design very quick,” stated Alves. “We print cavities in cores after which we will change them within the device and inject the components.
“Usually, exterior injection moulding will take possibly two to a few months. Internally, utilizing additive manufacturing, we will velocity up the method to possibly two weeks, three weeks most. For this undertaking, if we had to make use of exterior instruments, it will have been far more time-consuming and we might not have been capable of ship the components on time.”
