Ford Motor Firm has leveraged SLA and SLS 3D printing expertise from Formlabs to prototype a collection of parts within the growth 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 elements to be prototyped with Formlabs 3D printing expertise are a posh charging port, a canopy for the charging port, a rearview mirror meeting, dashboard elements 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 finest recognized for assembling the Ford Fiesta mannequin and, in keeping 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 growth centre and is answerable 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 steel 3D printing applied sciences.
The latest 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,” mentioned Bruno Alves, Additive Manufacturing Knowledgeable and Tooling Specialist at Ford. “I feel it’s the finest 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 discover ways to work with the machine and get elements 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 are able to ship extra elements, the throughput is larger. We’re rather more versatile if we now have short-time requests. We are able to do these utilizing Type 4.”
Formlabs’ Type 3L, in the meantime, has allowed Ford to prototype massive parts like exterior physique elements, with the Fuse SLS expertise enabling the testing of mechanical elements, such because the charging port cowl.
“The Type 3L permits us to print massive elements; for instance, exterior physique elements for the automobile,” provided Alves. “We printed this mirror cap to validate a design. 3D printing is appropriate for this software as a result of it’s quick and we will have superb high quality in comparison with mass manufacturing elements.
“For this charging cowl, it was necessary to make use of SLS, based mostly on the truth that we wanted a useful half that might allow us to check the mechanisms. It’s a realty advanced design that we’re not in a position to produce in any price means. We can’t mill this half. We can’t use injection moulding to only produce some samples. So, one of the best ways 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 supply crash take a look at elements. These parts have to be made out of the identical materials and course of as in mass manufacturing, that means the elements had been all the time 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 elements in weeks somewhat than months.
“We see loads of potential utilizing 3D printing inserts for injection moulding based mostly on the truth that we will iterate the design very quick,” mentioned Alves. “We print cavities in cores after which we will change them within the device and inject the elements.
“Usually, exterior injection moulding will take perhaps two to 3 months. Internally, utilizing additive manufacturing, we will velocity up the method to perhaps two weeks, three weeks most. For this undertaking, if we had to make use of exterior instruments, it could have been rather more time-consuming and we’d not have been in a position to ship the elements on time.”
