F1technical.net

mep wrote:

andylaurence wrote: It's possible, but not at full scale and not with the strength and weight of carbon. Shapeways offers a retail service where you could print metal parts for structural use and plastic covers for making it look nice. You might find that just doing it in composites is cheaper, lighter and stronger though...

It is full scale. If you have a close look at a F1 car you might be able to spot some 3D printed parts.
Some parts are just shaped too complex to build them from Carbon fibre. 3D printed parts can be relatively cheap as well.

Technically, you're right for small parts. I couldn't order a new front clamshell though.

mep wrote:As I already said it is also possible to get your own wing for your road car or amateur race car. It will be strong enough to transmit the aero forces. It will be heavier than carbon but if you just demand a single part cheaper. Also you are more flexible with the shape. Let’s say you want 3 wings all with different shapes. Carbon comes then quite expensive with all the tooling.

I'd be really interested to know who does 3D printed wings for less than the cost of carbon. That's about £600 for a single plane or about £1000 for a dual plane.

That is the order of magnitude you might have to spend for a rapid prototype part as well.
Also worth mentioning is that a carbon part has a much better surface quality.

mep wrote:That is the order of magnitude you might have to spend for a rapid prototype part as well.
Also worth mentioning is that a carbon part has a much better surface quality.

I would seriously like to know who would 3D print a wing for that sort of money. I can't find anyone who would print something that large as cheaply as that.

car has more than 47 pieces or parts, either way.

Will be interesting when the body gets cheap enough to print one for crash testing before printing a second road-going body. Still doesn't address the high cost of paying the crash test facility. Maybe Local Motors or a similar type company needs to set up and certify a much cheaper crash-test facility. That would be a great step forward. I think kit cars will continue to get harder to certify outside the formal regulatory regime, so the future of home-builts will depend on making that regime more efficient.

Local Motors to turn car-manufacturing on its head with new facilities. 3D Printing 'Micro-Factories' Set to Open in 2015



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