This is pretty cool. Imagine what you could do if you had this machine and a 3D printer?

 

That is absolutely awesome.

It certainly will make obsolete sheet metal parts more available to the classic car market.

 

I wonder what the limitation is on gauge thickness of the metal sheet? And 'depth' of a formed part?

 

Some of the specs are in this brochure. Intro price in US only ~$499,000. Deliveries were supposed to start in Q1, 2023....

 

Thanks Planeman for the specs. Looks like steel has a 14 gauge limit and 15.7 inch depth range and a sheet size of 63"x47" .

That puts this machine's system almost within striking range of making F2/F3 fenders and running boards! In a few years that may be possible as technology improves.

 

That's very cool. It won't replace any high volume operation, but for one off stuff it is fantastic.
I'm not seeing how it could do parts that have more than one layer in the Z axis though. I'm not sure if I'm explaining what I'm thinking properly.
It will be very interesting to see where this goes.

 

Amazing. Thanks for posting.

 

So if I read the info correctly you have a very sturdy and very expensive (half a million) CNC that uses a pin with a ball bearing to press designs in sheet metal instead of cutting tools, lasers, plasma cutters, etc. A simple and well developed concept but well out of the range of us hobbyists at this point. But who knows, in a few years someone in China will make cheap knockoffs that will do the same job on a smaller and cheaper scale.

 

Interesting concept, I have been trying to determine who the market would be for such a device and the only place that I can see that it would be economical would be in the new car industry. Right now new car manufacturers are still using clay to "build" the first model of a new car design...if they could go from computer to sheet metal directly then the uber-expensive process of building clay models would be eliminated.
Time will tell...worth watching to see how/if this system gets employed.

 

I have been in the industrial automation industry for over 30 years and have seen many changes happen very quickly. I can give hundreds of examples of technologies that we couldn't have imagined 20+ years ago. Computer is one of the major ones, when I started in this industry we still did our drawings by hand and when CAD came in only the few well trained CAD technicians used the systems and to regenerate a simple 2D would take hours. Now almost everyone doing what I do can do CAD, I have a CAD programs on both of my computers and whenever I do a project whether for work or home, I start the design on CAD. Now only the really large companies have CAD techs, most places I work with the engineers do all their own CAD work. I can see a system like this becoming cheaper and simple enough for a home user to buy. Look how much a 3D printer cost ten years ago, now I know at three people who have them in their home shop.

As for what this machine could be used for now I can see maybe not a large part like a fender or running board being pressed as one piece but what about three pieces and then welding them together? A person could order a 3 piece fender, have the parts shipping a smaller box and then weld it together once it is delivered. Ford and Chevy owners are pretty lucky with places selling reproduction sheet metal parts but the less popular marques are as fortunate. But, what if someone would invest in a machine and start to offer to make fenders for a '37 Buick? With the Ford and Chevy parts the sellers invest a huge a amount in tooling and then have to produce enough to cover the cost of their machines and storage. With a machine like this they can one off parts and instantaneous shipping.

 

I just ran across this video showing Nissans version. This video was posted to you tube in 2019.

Well, this can lead you down a rabbit hole. Here is a video from 2015

And back to 2012


I have learned to watch videos like this at twice speed. You can get all you need at that speed.