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Sunday, June 12, 2022

Automotive 3D Printed Parts

Remarkable capability  being used by GM 

GM 3D Prints 60,000 Parts to Keep Tahoe Deliveries on Time  By Tim Stevens in CNET

What's happening : GM turned to industrial 3D printers to avoid a crucial parts shortage.

Why it matters  :  This is the first time we've seen additive manufacturing on such an automotive scale.

What's next:  This points to 3D printing moving beyond the prototyping phase and into proper manufacturing.

Current chip shortages may be the buzzkill quashing your most urgent capitalistic desires during the pandemic, but production supply issues aren't limited to the silicon variety. When faced with an inability to produce a component needed for delivery of the 2022 Chevrolet Tahoe, General Motors engineers turned to a novel solution: 3D printing.

3D printing, more formally known as additive manufacturing, is the process of rapidly crafting fully formed parts from digital models. GM made a major investment in the tech in 2020, dedicating 15,000 square feet of space to facility dubbed the Additive Industralization Center, then filling it with HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printers, among others. These printers are a lot more sophisticated than your Prusa or Anycubic at home, but operate on the same basic principle of creating components layer by layer. .... '

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