Farsoon just completed a huge metal 3D printing project with an interesting twist.
Farsoon is one of the largest 3D printer manufacturers in the world, always near the top of our weekly leaderboard. They produce a wide range of industrial metal and polymer 3D printers.
Recently, they described a fascinating project they undertook with European motorcycle manufacturer Stark Future. Their focus is to produce high-performance electric motorcycles for motocross and consumer use. It’s a pretty new company, having sold gear for only about two years.
Stark Future’s key product is the Stark Varg, a high-performance bike. The product was so successful that it made the company immediately profitable, and they wanted to celebrate the occasion with a fascinating 3D print project called “KLINGA”.
The idea was to design a 3D printable artistic blade, inspired by the Varg’s aesthetics. They worked with Farsoon to develop the sculpture’s design and also print them.
How many were produced? It turns out 1,000 KLINGA Sabres were made, all 3D printed in titanium.
For Farsoon, this was more than just a print project, as they had to certify the use of titanium on their equipment. That also included the development of the print parameters, which is usually challenging for metal applications. Farsoon listed the research they had to complete:
Process parameter development for titanium
Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM)
Support reduction and build strategy
Adaptive layer thickness based on part height
Repeatability and scalability of serial production
Post-processing and part quality assurance
Printing 1,000 units is always challenging, and Farsoon was able to do so on their FS811M platform. They say they could fit 188 sabres on a print plate at a time (see image at top), and the print job took 248 hours (ten days!) to complete. For 1,000 units, this would imply around two months of printing. Although they don’t say, it’s likely Farsoon employed multiple machines in parallel to complete the job more quickly.
Interestingly, Stark Future then auctioned off the sabres, as you can see in this screenshot. Each sabre was uniquely numbered, something easily done with 3D printing. This enabled Stark Future to auction off sabres by number. The top bid was, of course, for number 1.
We’re not sure of the average price for the bids, but if it was around US$500, then Stark Future would have collected US$500,000 for the auction. Would that have been enough to pay for the 3D printing work done? I’m not sure, but at nearly US$100,000 per print plate, they’d be close.
Via Farsoon
