First E-Bikes, Then Flying Cars: a Do-Anything 3D Printing Tech (ieee.org) 45
Tekla Perry shares an interesting story from the IEEE's "View from the Valley" blog:
Arevo was aiming to get into the aircraft parts business when it started developing software and hardware to print 3D structures using a composite containing continuous carbon fibers. Its technology lays out the lines of the material in ways to maximize strength and minimize the amount of composite used.
Printing out a bike frame? That was just going to be a demo for investors. Now the company is in the e-bike manufacturing business, but thinks the ultimate application of its technology will be flying cars.
That's not a joke, the article explains: Bheda says the flying car market could turn out to be Arevo's sweet spot. "They will be manufactured in a larger volume than airplanes, the manufacturing technology being used for current aircraft won't scale to that, and they want to use thermoplastic. Our technology is at least three years ahead of any other thermoplastic technology, so we will be ready."
They're now marketing their in-house printing capabilities as a service, "keeping the manufacture of any products in house."
Printing out a bike frame? That was just going to be a demo for investors. Now the company is in the e-bike manufacturing business, but thinks the ultimate application of its technology will be flying cars.
That's not a joke, the article explains: Bheda says the flying car market could turn out to be Arevo's sweet spot. "They will be manufactured in a larger volume than airplanes, the manufacturing technology being used for current aircraft won't scale to that, and they want to use thermoplastic. Our technology is at least three years ahead of any other thermoplastic technology, so we will be ready."
They're now marketing their in-house printing capabilities as a service, "keeping the manufacture of any products in house."
Mark my wager here: (Score:2)
I'll give this company the same wager I give every flying car company:
If this company can successfully produce a financially sustainable flying car business, I will eat the sun.
The whole sun. I'll eat it.
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You should offer that same bet to solar powered car companies.
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The key I think is that they're probably not going to try to be a flying car company - they're going to be flying-car *parts* company. Think of it - you design the structural components, send off the plans and specs, and get your built-to-order ultra-high-performance airframe components delivered in a few weeks. That removes a huge obstacle for flying car designers - they don't have to figure out how to make the structural components in order to get cutting-edge properties built to order. They can just d
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I'm glad to see someone finally doing this.
Arevo is hardly the first company to be 3D printing continuous fiber inside thermoplastic parts. MarkForged has been doing it for quite a while now. Thomas Sanladerer even did an unboxing and test print with the Markforged Mark Two way back in 2016...
3D print with continuous Carbon Fiber and Kevlar - Markforged Mark Two live unboxing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Cool! I had missed that.
3D printing, flying cars (Score:1)
But how do blockchain and AI figure into it?
Re:3D printing, flying cars (Score:4, Funny)
This will only work if... (Score:5, Funny)
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This will only work if they figure out how to 3D print competent flying car pilots.
I distinctly remember a documentary with Robert Stack and Peter Graves where they had an automated pilot that wasn't 3D printed but inflated when needed. As I recall this was produced in 1980, give or take. It showed what must have been a prototype as it sprung a leak and needed to be inflated manually. The choice of where they placed the inflation tube was... awkward.
At least 3d printing makes for neat gimmicks. :) (Score:2)
I have to admit, as far as gimmicks go, I was pretty impressed with Adam Savage's 3d printed flying titanium Iron Man suit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDqWTU5jOFc [youtube.com]
I figured there was no way it was going to be bullet resistant at all, yet it even blocked the .44 magnum shots from pretty close range. After seeing that, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that it protected its burst discs from the bomb test, too. I should have given the relatively thin pieces of 3d printed titanium plate more credit -
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YouTube link was dead for me. Is this a close approximation of what you were trying to show?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I linked to the actual episode; that's a description of the episode. Maybe it's blocked where you are.
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>Generally highly suboptimal for anything that needs to be produced in volume at low cost.
True, but volume and cost are always relative. If you're in the flying car market, your concept of "high volume" and "low cost" are going tobe very different than for bicycles.
And this thing is likely delivering mechanical properties that can't otherwise be delivered except through far more costly processes - carbon fiber production of complex shapes is not a simple task, and far less so if you want the additional
whats the point (Score:2)
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The point of it flying is to fulfill everyone's fantasy when stuck in traffic jams: push a button to switch to quadcopter mode, soar over the stuck traffic, then go back down to car mode and continue on your way.
When someone accomplishes that, it will market itself and people will be clamoring for them.
As a bonus, it will double as a leaf blower for your lawn in the fall.
People in convertibles might be a little unhappy with these things hovering a few feet over them, though, blowing the car contents
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Good point. Thing is, if you truly want to cut through traffic on a dangerous vehicle, riding a motorcycle is already an option. For some reason that's not a very popular option in the U.S. The fantasy isn't worth the tradeoffs.
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People in convertibles might be a little unhappy with these things hovering a few feet over them, though, blowing the car contents all over the place and rupturing eardrums.
Or in any car that still has a finish.
Weight (Score:2)
People naturally carry around their own weight effortlessly, which really distorts their intuition about the energy requirements to lift a human adult off the ground. That doesn't change no matter how lightweight the vehicle itself is. We have powered flight but it's easy to forget how radically different flying is from rolling along a surface.
If flying car technology comes along, I'll be impressed and excited, but until then I'm pretty skeptical.
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Flying car technology already exists. It has for decades. That is the not the problem.
The problems are that driveways are not airports, drivers are not pilots, and driveways are surrounded by other people's houses who don't want you crashing into them.
Existing tech gets ~16mpg. My old minivan gets 20.
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Flying car technology already exists. It has for decades. That is the not the problem.
The problems are that driveways are not airports, drivers are not pilots, and driveways are surrounded by other people's houses who don't want you crashing into them.
Existing tech gets ~16mpg. My old minivan gets 20.
Here's the problem I see, noise. The materials and labor of a flying car compared to that of one that rolls is quite similar. One time costs of engineering and regulations would be minimal if spread over potentially millions of vehicles. The problem of a driveway not being an airport, and a driver not a pilot, are engineering problems.
One problem that is not so trivially solved is that of noise. Getting a family of four off the ground and into the air will mean moving a lot of air. This moving air will
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I went out last week to fly and my rudder cable was loose. Took me a while to figure out, but the cable had slipped in the nicopress sleeve.
The thing that will kill the flying car, is the flying car killing people. Or, are you going to tell us that you check your control linkages before every drive you take?
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Yes, we definitely need either impressive autonomous pilots, or incredibly simplified controls.
Or perhaps even just a decent autonomous pilot coupled with human pilots that can take over remotely for landings, take-offs, and when they run in to any sort of situation the autonomous pilot can't handle. That would probably work great for an air-taxi service. And frankly I suspect it will be quite a while before anyone but the rich can afford a private air car, and they can afford the insurance.
>Existing t
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The closest we have come to flying cars has been the residential airpark, a subdivision surrounding a general aviation runway. These have a certain appeal to private pilots whose job in the big city is near an airport. It's one of those new-postwar-society ideas that, um, never quite took off.
https://www.flyingmag.com/pilo... [flyingmag.com]
Very easy. (Score:2)
Did you guys see the Flyboard Air (recently demonstrated in at the Bastile Day celebrations in France)?
So one Flyboard Air can carry a man .. uh he is French let's assume he weighs 150 pounds. Presumably you can put two of those Flyboards together and carry that 150 lb person sitting in a 150 pound carbon fiber enclosure with three lightweight bicycle wheels. You can turn use a flap to direct the thrust horizontal behind you to travel on land. so you There Voila .. done. The windows would have to be some fa
Shitty Bike Design (Score:2)
Entrepreneurs need to simply accept that redesigning the diamond frame (with exception to full-shock suspension and step-through frames) is almost always an exercise in folly. There is a reason that the design has stood the test of 100 years-- it works and it's cost effective. This guy's removal of the seatstays only serves to require the over-engineering of the connecting between the chainstay and the bottom bracket/pedal-assist drive system. Moreover, it removes the ability to attach a rear cargo rack so