A lot of effort went into this, but costs would be too high.
We contacted the commercial division of one of Melbourne's leading universities.
The idea was to re-manufacture the cogs in metal using 3D printing. When I was at their premises, they were manufacturing a part - incorporating three different alloys - for an aviation company. The staff told us that all their 3D printers are from Germany and that the aircraft part would take 24 hours to complete.
At the local International Air Show (it is a biennial show) they displayed a working jet engine that had been totally made on their 3D machines.
One of my fellow club members later discussed the proposed manufacture of our cogs.
We didn't want plastic as there is quite a sudden impact when the gears reach the stop "buffer" - I liken it to a rail vehicle hitting the buffers at the end of a line.
My son-in-law prepared a set of cogs in plastic - only for checking against our drawings.
We intended to have the cogs made in a strong metal that would withstand jarring - the company uses titanium in a lot of their work. However, considering the time to clean-up the prototypes - supports have to be included in the programme to hold parts during manufacture and later, these "supports" have to be cut out and the items cleaned up.
We would have had to place a minimum production run to reduce costs and even then it was considered that members would prefer to continue with the second hand plastic BMWs units - whilst these remainl available.
I did consider placing a photo of the two main cogs - formed in a blue plastic.
Saddened by the fact that we couldn't get this project off the ground - after so much effort.
|