The Omega 3D printed titanium bike [Source: 1bike4life]
This week’s selection is the Omega bike frame by 1bike4life.
The German bike manufacturer offers four well-known brands, one of which is Falkenjagd (Falcon Hunt). Under this brand they’ve revealed “Project Omega”, a 3D printed bike frame made from titanium.
Titanium is a highly desirable material for building a bike frame. It is incredibly lightweight, yet very strong. It also is resistant to most corrosion effects, and is therefore quite low maintenance. They say it would make a bike for a lifetime.
1bike4life has been attempting to 3D print a titanium bike frame for many years. They technically succeeded some years ago, but the production…
The Omega 3D printed titanium bike [Source: 1bike4life]
This week’s selection is the Omega bike frame by 1bike4life.
The German bike manufacturer offers four well-known brands, one of which is Falkenjagd (Falcon Hunt). Under this brand they’ve revealed “Project Omega”, a 3D printed bike frame made from titanium.
Titanium is a highly desirable material for building a bike frame. It is incredibly lightweight, yet very strong. It also is resistant to most corrosion effects, and is therefore quite low maintenance. They say it would make a bike for a lifetime.
1bike4life has been attempting to 3D print a titanium bike frame for many years. They technically succeeded some years ago, but the production costs were astronomical: as much as €40,000 (US$47K) per frame. That was effectively DOA in the market, so they set to work to make the process more efficient.
Now, four years later, they have something pretty close to where they want to be. In this video Andreas Kirschner explains (in German) the challenges they faced developing the bike’s manufacturing process.
The one piece bike frame is printed in Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy using the LPBF process. The print job alone takes an astounding ten days to complete — with a five laser machine. That is followed by five days of manual post processing to remove supports and polish the surface. Finally, there’s an another day to anodize the lettering and colors onto the frame.
After multiple iterations, they have been able to reduce the cost to currently €14,000 (US$16K) as shown on their website. However, they believe in the near future they should be able to further reduce the price to around €4000 (US$4600). That should be close to the range buyers would accept the frame.
Their persistence in working on this project is quite admirable, as other companies might have given up on the project long ago.
Via 1bike4life
By Kerry Stevenson
Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!
View all of Kerry Stevenson’s posts.