3D printed electric motorcycle components
From the partnership between the innovative Design of E-Racer and the technical experience of WASP, a new electric 3d printed motorcycle is born: The Rugged.
In fact, the E-Racer Design Team asked us to join forces to create components for a new motorcycle: a redesign and optimization of the previous one ZERO FXS. We suddenly replied that we were really excited to collaborate in this innovative project. WASP, since the beginning, works with research Teams that share the dream to make the World a better place.
E-Racer, with this electrical motorcycle, cooperates to achieve this visionary goal. That’s the way this partnership has born: WASP has provided his technical skills in technical materials and in 3d printing.
3D printed electric motorcycle parts by WASP and E-Racer
Design Team
E-Racer is an Italian Company that works designing motorcycles and scooters for other corporations. The founder is Aldo De Giovanni: after years of working behind the scenes, he decided to collect his experience and to build a Designers Team.
The E-Racer Team works as an external consultant for Companies that want to create innovative motorcycles. They have already created projects for italian chinese, and vietnamite market.
Design is always at the core production with clay models, sketches and renders that are combined with the most advanced technology like 3d printing and robotics. This is the perfect mix between craftsmanship and automation.
E-Racer: an innovative Designers Team
The Rugged: 3d printed electrical motorcycle
The Rugged has been redesigned from a 2018 model to be optimized: his production and distribution is scheduled for 2020 fall. Due to the short term, E-Racer decided to rely on WASP for the production of some components: carter, riding, tail, lateral frames and tank.
The redesign made from the Team has allowed the parts shapes to reach the essential, improving the functionality and making the motorcycle lighter.
The parts are 3D printed in ABS and then they are sanded and treated with protective coat Line-X. This process makes them more resistant to the weathering and adds durability to the material.
Why 3d printing?
- lighter components
- direct production without molds
- customization
- simultaneous creation of different parts
- particular shapes
- waste reduction
- controlled thickness
- no need for draft angles
- assembling ABS pieces with acetone
3D printing leads a great advantage to the components production: you can pass directly from modelling to the creation of the object, without other processes.
This allows to rapidly shorten the productive line and to vary the pieces’ shape without additional costs.
Customized motorcycle parts
The creation of the parts with 3d printers permits their customizing and to achieve exclusive design. You can design parts with different shapes, that couldn’t be possible with the usual industrial process. This allows also to avoid molds cost, difficult to amortize in short time.
Another benefit of 3d printing production is the opportunity to simultaneously create pieces in different printers. You can subdivide the components into several parts and print them in the same time, speeding up even more the manifacturing.
Fully customizable: each motorcycle is unique thanks to 3d printing
Not only prototypes, with technical materials you can print ready-to-use products.
3D printing has always been seen as a prototyping method to have a quick response of the model in reality. With the materials science progress, 3D printing can use technical materials with high resistance and mechanical properties suitable for an actual application. To print these parts, we decided to use ABS, a thermopolymer widely used thanks to its proprieties of resistance, flexibility and lightness.
ABS filament
A technical material with high-shock resistance
The chosen material is ABS: it is a technical material that resists to shocks and to extreme temperature changes.
It is often used for replacement parts because compared to other materials, like PLA, it is warp resistant after big temperature changes and usually tends to avoid crumbling. In addition, his friction coefficient is really low, so the extrusion turns out simple.
With ABS you can also subdivide components, print them separately and then reassembly them with acetone and a plaster made with ABS melted in acetone.
Thanks to the hot chamber of the printer Delta WASP INDUSTRIAL X, it has been possible to print big pieces (the bigger one is 70cm!).
Line-X
Line-X is a professional treatment that, applied at high temperature and pressure, binds permanently to components.
It is the distinctive effect that we often see in motorcycles and pick ups: a porous and knurled paint that gives style and strength to vehicles. It is formed by a hardener and a resin, that contrast the abrasion of the underlying material.
Professional 3d printer
Delta WASP INDUSTRIAL X 4070 is the ideal printer to create industrial objects.In fact his heated chamber and cooled mechanic permit to fastly print big pieces with technical material. As with The Rugged components, thank to the big capacity of the volume (40cm x 70cm), It was not a problem to print each kind of pieces size.