Save half your production time with Stratasys full-color multi-material 3D printers

The 3D printing company Stratasys announced on June 7 local time that the Audi Pre-Series Center and plastic 3D printing center in Ingolstadt, Germany, will use the world's only full-color Multi-material 3D printer - Stratasys J750 to innovate the design process and accelerate design validation. Audi hopes to shorten the prototyping cycle by 50% in the production of rear lampshades.

Save half your production time with Stratasys full-color multi-material 3D printers
Geely Automobile News According to foreign media reports, Stratasys, a 3D printing company, announced on June 7 local time, the Audi Pre-Series Center and plastic 3D printing center in Ingolstadt, Germany. The Stratasys J750, the world's only full-color, multi-material 3D printer, will be used to innovate the design process and accelerate design verification. Audi hopes to shorten the prototyping cycle by 50% in the production of rear lampshades.

Before the new car was put into production, Audi's pre-series centers first established physical models and prototypes to fully evaluate new designs and concepts. In other words, during the early stages of product development, most parts of the vehicle – from wheel covers, door handles to radiator grilles, etc., need to be pre-allocated, and are usually created and copied using traditional methods such as modeling and milling. new design. However, plastic 3D printing has become an integral part of the center's automotive design process, allowing teams to overcome the limitations of traditional design processes and accelerate design verification.

Save half your production time with Stratasys full-color multi-material 3D printers
When producing taillight shades, the Audi team typically uses modeling and milling to produce individual components. The main challenge faced by this type of production technology is the production of multicolor rear lampshades. Monochromatic components cannot be assembled in one piece because they cannot be produced. Therefore, the process is very time-consuming. It increases the time for design verification and the delay in late-stage time-to-market.

The center will use Stratasys J750 full-color multi-material 3D printing technology to streamline the design and design verification process. In this way, a completely transparent multi-color rear lamp shade can be produced in a single print, thereby avoiding the previously complicated procedures. With more than 500,000 color combinations, the Audi team can print transparent multi-colored components to meet Audi's rigorous design approval process.

Dr. Tim Spiering, head of Audi Plastics 3D Printing Center, said: "Design is one of the important factors for consumers to buy Audi products. Therefore, during the car design and concept formation stage, we must abide by the highest quality standards. As such, we need Build prototypes with precise geometry, no distortion, high quality, solid color, transparent components.Stratasys J750 printer can help us to print out the materials and colors needed for design, so it will bring us significant advantages for the approval of production. This is very important. Using the J750 printer to print prototypes of taillight shades can speed up the design verification process and it is expected to save at least 50% of the time."

Andy Middleton, president of Stratasys Europe, Middle East and Africa, sums up: "The full-color, multi-material 3D printing technology can merge multiple design processes into one, speeding up the development cycle, Audi is the best example. If you put Audi in the taillight production The time saved in the promotion of the production of other parts of the vehicle may have an overall impact on Audi's time to market, and we would like to know how Audi sees the use of our FDM and PolyJet technologies in new areas to further improve The efficiency of the entire development process."