Charge Bikes Uses 3D Printed Titanium Bike Parts, Shows Us The Future

cool stuff, but can it really be as strong as a part machined from plate?

I thought the extrusion process is important for aligning the grains.

anyway, cool vid.

Good answer to the above….

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/14635/what-will-the-strength-of-a-sintered-steel-piece-be-compared-with-a-cast-piece

For something like a drop-out it’s over kill. But a step in an interesting direction.

By trade I am a machinist and have used a very wide variety of tooling. Lazer cutters, wire EDM, Waterjet, etc. I had zero idea something like this existed. Super cool stuff.

As for strength, the heating process that the parts went through after being pulled out of the machine is what gives the part it’s strength. Like heat treating the titanium to relieve the stress and align the molecules.

wow!!!!!!

The 3D printers may come down in price eventually, but thre sintering ovens used for titanium and other metals post 3D printting process are still not cheap, all part of the powder metallurgy industry.

That is some really impressive technology and design to a tough design problem. Anyone that has ever designed a bicycle will tell you the hardest part to design is the dropouts because their are so many design restrictions on them from the axle/quick release, disc brake tabs, rear deraileur and some times suspension piviots.

And now we wait for Shimano and Campagnolo crying wolf about CAD-files of derailleurs on the Pirate Bay.

Imagine when they build one large enough to print an entire bike with infinitely varying butting throughout each tube to tune ride characteristics. Suddenly carbon sounds boring…

What would infinitely varying butting be? Given the tubing would have finite dimensions, that would pretty much rule out anything infinite.

For titanium each layer in the LAM process is on the order of 30-50 microns thick (0.03-0.05mm or 0.001-0.002 inches). That’s already pretty smooth between layers. It’s also likely that the product will be pretty smooth between laser passes since each pass melting metal and each pass is likely partially overlapping the previous pass. With all that in mind, the process already will make a satisfactorily smooth curve. Look at the dropouts above. They’re pretty damned smooth in cross-section, be it through any axis. So a tube with complex butting is already achievable. Heck, did you see the guy’s pen in the video?

The hold-up on an entire frame will be the cost as an entire frame will take some time to build up, and far fewer frames can be built at a time compared to things like dropouts. Sure that time will likely come win the cost of frame made via LAM is reasonable, but that time is still a fair distance off.

Absolutely awesome. So many implications. The cost has got to be very high compared to its benefits so I can never see this process becoming mainstream for bike frame production – atleast in my lifetime. Carbon frames are a prime example. Although they’re affordable to the mass market now, most everyday bikers are still riding aluminum and steel bikes.

I could see this being utilized on the production of high-end gears and components however because they’re much smaller in size and require greater precision. I could also see more independent component manufactures coming to market with high end gears with this technique. They don’t have to purchase any large expensive factories. All they need are talented engineers and this 3D printer in their workshop.