Carbon 3D C.L.I.P. Printed Performance Intake Manifold
imgur.com/a/nIB2d
imgur.comPosted Mar 30, 2017, 3:45 PM UTC
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imgur.comWhen you save a file to the .STL file type you can adjust the resolution of the file so you can more accurately produce curves. It looks like your file is a little lower res than it could be because the round sections don't look quite as smooth as they did with a machine of that caliber. Just a friendly hint.
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Thank you very much. You're right, I noted that in the caption of one of the closeups.
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Let Carbon 3D know that their investment in you guys paid some dividends – I'm going to at the very least be giving their machine a glance. My company could put one of these to good use...
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Thank you, that's great to hear. We will certainly pass that message along.
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FSAE? Looks good. We have a 3d printed intake as well, just out of ABS.
Edit: I can read titles, I promise..
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WSU? I think I recognize that pair of doors....
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The one and only. We're in a hole in the wall in ELB.
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Small world.
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Very cool. Any closeups?
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Not on me at the moment, I'll swing by the shop and grab you one after my lab.
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Killer! Looking forward to it.
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Apparently links directly from google photos trigger automod.. take two!
The cloth and zip tie is temporary, till the bracket for it on the headrest gets finalized.
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Careful with the ABS, you may want to seal it with something. Doing an immersion test in gas or ethanol we found it would slump or outright melt. I would have to check but I think we switched to ppsf or ppsu plastic which has good resistance to that.
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It was smoothed, then sealed. I'm not sure what it was sealed with, not my subsystem. I can tell you all about our fuel system ;)
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I was right down the road from you doing FHSAE a few years ago. I always wanted to 3D print our intake, (would've been much simpler for a 1 banger) but sadly I never got to it. Looks good. Planning on competing with those?
*edit: comments below answered my questions already
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The red and grey are both printed.
Throttle body (metal) --> restrictor venturi (printed) --> two piece plenum (printed in 2 due to printer height limits) --> runners (printed) --> intake boots (rubber, OEM)
We're reprinting it at a lower layer height to make the results after acetone smoothing even better. We'll be using it at competition, yes. After the acetone smoothing, the inside surface was coated with some sort of fuel-safe coating, not sure exactly what it was (not my subsystem). It's held up fine through our testing so far, no damage from vapors or anything.
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Very cool. Thanks for the reply. I asked because that was ultimately what convinced us not to print the intake (ours would've had direct contact with any overspray). We didn't want to risk it degrading and gunking up our internals. Sounds like you guys found a way to make it work though. Good luck!
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Right on. You're in FSAE too? What school?
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Sweet. How does it hold up? Got video? What does this cost retail?
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How does it hold up?
We should know in the next couple of months as we do testing in advance of the competition.
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You know what is equally impressive is when someone does a lost foam casting of engine parts. It's a really awesome process if you've never seen it before. I see all those welds in the first picture and I'm just like "bleh"
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I've been looking at a carbon 3d printer for my work, and have had some frustrations with their inability to provide accurate engineering parameters for their materials. The biggest questions have been around shrinkage and warpage during the curing process. Did you have to compensate for part shrinkage during curing (or bonding of the two 'green' parts together) and did you notice any distortion or warpage after printing and curing compared to your model?
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These are great questions. C3D manufactured this for us so I will see if I can get answers to all of the questions I've been receiving. All I can say for sure is that the final product mounts as designed without issue.
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hbar_sandwich, I am the guy who designed the intake and has been in contact with C3D. When I modeled it in Solidworks, I did not take into account for shrinkage or warping as I don't have that information, and sent the files to C3D for them to print for us. The one thing that has become very evident though, is that there is some warpage that occurred on the flange where the upper half bolts to the two pieces with the runners, where the material is approximately 4 mm thick. In the next print, I will be making the mating surfaces thicker so we can face the pieces on a mill.
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You should have a pressure release valve so that when it back fires it doesn't blow up the plastic intake. I had issues with this on the carbon intake, relief valve really helped the life.
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Thank you for the feedback. I'll pass this along to the intake lead.
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would love to see that hold up to 50psi of boost
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Looks great. Does it have a resolution higher than 75 um? 25 hours is still a pretty long time when CLIP advertises really fast speeds? I would be curious if you could load the model file in Form Lab's free PreForm software and seeing what the print time is for a comparative resolution (50 or 100 um) with the high-temp material, which has a heat deflection temperature is 289 °C @ 0.45 MPa.
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To be clear, it was not a 25 hour print. I am doubtful a Form Labs printer could come close to matching Carbon3D's speed and isotropic results. They are 2 very different technologies.
That said, I will try to pull more details from our contact at C3D regarding print times and material properties.
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I misread your image comment that the 75 um was the the z-layer height rather than the XY resolution from an assumed DLP-based light source. It seems that the layers are apparent when they advertise layer less technology, but I have no scale on the pictures to know the step size that is visual in the pictures. I guess the layers may only be apparent on slope/gradients due to the inherent limitations of pixels with a DLP source, I swear they advertised the system using a laser back with the first TED talks but I commend them to switching to DLP if that is the case.
Their oxygen permeable window which utilizes what was previously an disadvantage feature of photopolymers to its advantage is ingenious, but to my knowledge the rest of their system is systematically identical to SLA and DLP-based printers, which are also isotropic in strength. I'd love to know the actual print times though, the speed of what I've read seems excellent, that is why I was surprised to see the 25 hour number. I'd love to see a breakdown on the time, I tend to not put parts that I print through the full bake/cure cycle as I work with electrical 3D printing rather than pushing the mechanical properties.
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DLP and laser are not mutually exclusive, are they? Laser is a light source, while DLP is a beam control method that routes each "pixel" either at the screen or at a heatsink. An unfocused laser should be compatible.
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If you don't mind, can you clear up what you're exactly getting at with mutually exclusivity between the two methods?
I've built SLA machines before, and written papers around it. From what I can tell, people will refer to DLP-based machines as SLA, DLP, and DLP SLA. Laser based ones are often only referred to as SLA. I consider DLP a subset of SLA, they are both methods of lithography and DLP utilizing DMD devices are often used for IC fabrication for use as a digital mask in mask-less lithography.
So for me? It is all about context. If I read/say SLA, use context to determine if the focus is on DLP or laser based. If you want more details on my opinion of DLP vs SLA well you'll never get me to shut up. I'm a bigger fan of DLP but SLA does have several advantages (irradiance W/cm^2 for example and vector paths). My favorite SLA variation is 2 photon absorption, which has seen printing resolutions in the ~100 nm range. We just got one at a nearby lab, but I haven't worked with it yet. There are some prints here on reddit using it. DLP Stereolithography still has a TON of room for development, I've been working with multi-material printing using it (though it is a bit wasteful, I'm looking at ways to modify).
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That looks ridiculously sexy, there's something about Matt black engine parts that are just .... Mmmm
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Very cool stuff! Prior to working with Carbon, was it all just CF layups to produce these parts in prior years? Do they sponsor you or are you paying them for this service?
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The CF of the legacy intake manifold pictured in the album are wet layups and the Al is CNC milled. This is what we have done for the last few years.
We have Alumni working at C3D so it's a pseudo-sponsorship.
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What does the entire thing weigh when made out of RPU as opposed to CF layup?
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Comparing the weight of an intake laid up in CF wouldn't really apply, as the upper half of the manifold would be pretty much impossible to manufacture. I have however, not had the chance to weigh the intake yet.
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What is the glass transition temp of that material? Any worry about heat related deformation?
Our intake lead would know that. I'll get back to you.
I'd appreciate the information, thank you.
Resins don't really have a glass transition point because they're not thermoplastics. They tend to crack and split when heated instead of melting.
HDT seems pretty low for an engine component. I would be interested in seeing some testing done.
Hey hex_rx, I am the one who designed the intake (just joined reddit a few moments ago). There will be a 0.25" phenolic spacer between the cylinder head and the intake manifold as to insulate the manifold.