MECH WORLD

California based automotive startup Divergent Microfactories founded by designer Kevin Czinger has introduced the world’s first 3D-printed super car . Image taken from Inhabitant “Society has made great strides in its awareness and adoption of cleaner and greener cars. The problem is that while these cars do now exist, the actual manufacturing of them is anything but environmentally friendly,” announced Kevin Czinger, founder and CEO of Divergent Microfactories. Divergent is planning to revolutionize the process of car building, by developing a new method of manufacturing automobiles. Specifically, Czinger and his employees co-designed a 3D-printed aluminum Node joint which links to carbon fiber turing compenets to create the outer frame. The new method explains Czinger, optimizes the manufacturing process and requires less space as compared to traditional car manufacturing methods, thus allowing Divergent to operate and manufacture in factories smaller than us...

What is 3D printing? How does 3D printing work? Processes and technologies Examples & applications of 3D printing 3D printing industry Industrial printing Personal printing History Future 3D Printing Services 3D Marketplaces Infographic What is 3D printing? 3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the entire object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object. How does 3D printing work? It all starts with making a virtual design of the object you want to create. This virtual design is made in a CAD (Computer Aided Design) file using a 3D modeling  program (for the creation of a totally new object) or with the use of a 3D scanner (to c...

A dditive  M anufacturing ( AM ) is an appropriate name to describe the technologies that build 3D objects by adding  layer-upon-layer of material, whether the material is plastic, metal, concrete or one day…..human tissue. Common to AM technologies is the use of a computer, 3D modeling software (Computer Aided Design or CAD), machine equipment and layering material.  Once a CAD sketch is produced, the AM equipment reads in data from the CAD file and lays downs or adds successive layers of liquid, powder, sheet material or other, in a layer-upon-layer fashion to fabricate a 3D object. The term  AM  encompasses many technologies including subsets like 3D Printing, Rapid Prototyping (RP), Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM), layered manufacturing and additive fabrication. AM  application is limitless. Early use of AM in the form of Rapid Prototyping focused on preproduction visualization models. More recently, AM is being used to f...

I often find myself looking at manufactured products, and wondering “how would you go about designing something like that?” For some things, the sheer scale of the problem is so large that it’s hard to wrap your head around it.  But, there are many things that are more human scale, in complexity and difficulty. A good example is an electric motorcycle. Some time back, I was having a conversation with some folks from  a company that does crowd-sourced engineering projects, about ideas for interesting projects. I suggested an electric motorcycle.  My thinking was that, with the availability of standard motors, control electronics, battery packs, and lots of OEM parts (forks, wheels, brakes, and even frames), it would be an interesting exercise, with relatively simple engineering, and an emphasis on industrial design. I was reminded of this conversation when I learned I’d be hosting a webinar with industrial designer and engineer, Nout Van Heumen. Nout has become som...

Solidworks Overview Solidworks main idea is user to create drawing directly in 3D or solid form. From this solid user can assemble it directly on their workstation checking clashes and functionality of it. Creating drawing is pretty easy just drag and drop the solid to drawing block. Part Part is created by sketch. Sketch is the base to define your part, form and features. Before you start creating sketches you must select plane or face where the sketch will be place on. After select plane or face the sketch will be, sketch on it! When you done with sketch, adding features it is your next step. Select Feature>Extruded Cut Select Through All and OK. Assembly Assembly is how all parts works together in assembly, checking for clashes and it functionality. First all parts inserted in assembly by Insert Component tool. When all parts inserted into workspace, Mate is command to define how parts mate with each other. Let’s mate this block and pin together, click M...

SolidWorks User Interface is pretty simple and straight forward. There is 6 main area of interface you normally work with. 1) Menu Bar – Top most of the application, executing New File, Open File, Save, Print, Undo, Select, Rebuild, File Properties and Options. 2) Command Manager – Access to part, assembly and drawing editting tools. 3) Feature Manager design tree – Outline overview how your part, assembly and drawing constructed. 4) Status bar – Provide an information about your part, assembly and drawing. 5) Head up view toolbar – View tools such as zoom, pan, zoom plane and section view. 6) Graphics area – Workspace for your part, assembly and drawing.