Making me a carbon fiber valence **edit errr something. making something sometime.

[Wergen7]

Some background: I'm in school for composite technology right now and we do a personal/graduation project. I decided I'm going to make my own awesome valence for my otherwise worthless car. The catch is that it must be 3d modeled and cnc cut, making this much more tedious than it has to be but hey, I learned stuff.

My inspiration for the design comes from the early es valence, the m3 dtm valence, and a hint of e46 m3

So here's what I've done and where I'm at

First I had to measure the valence. Very very tedious exercise. I made a jig that was as square as possible with given resources (it was super duper extra square, guaranteed). I then put the jig and valence onto a cm grid and measured half the thing every 10cm going across. I only had to do all this because we don't have a 3d scanner.


[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]


So I recorded the x,y,z of each point and imported them into Rhino and got something like this:

[IMG][/IMG]

Since I more or less eyeballed every measurement none of the curves were fair and it took me quite some time to smooth things out, especially without changing the overall geometry.

So here's where I'm at right now. Still some work to do so it can be cut on the cnc (which is down right now ) and I think the brake ducts need to be moved out a little bit.

[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

And here it's photobombed onto a car. I like it.

[IMG][/IMG]

Let me know what you think! More to come

[Nick_S]

Man ill be honest, that looks great. Keep us posted on your progress!

[TimeMachinE30]

Nice work. Keep us updated...

[Ray Smoodiver]

That is straight up badass!

Q with regards to 3d mapping it, could you have it mapped and then spat out in carbon?

[Wergen7]

That is straight up badass!

Q with regards to 3d mapping it, could you have it mapped and then spat out in carbon?

Thanks! Not sure I understand your question

[ak-]

Thanks! Not sure I understand your question

If the printer is able to produce the uploaded design into straight car in fiber


This is awesome work man.

[Wergen7]

If the printer is able to produce the uploaded design into straight car in fiber


This is awesome work man.

Not possible. A cnc is only a router that cuts things down, not like a 3d printer which prints things (usually only plastic unless you have significant cash flow). Carbon fiber comes as a woven cloth. 3d printing carbon fiber is one of those things that people are working on but doesn't exist quite yet. That answer the question?

[BamaE30]

That looks really nice you should do a small production run...

[MPLFoster]

This is cool. Definitely interested in seeing what the final product looks like.

[stonea]

Definitely sub'd

[Wergen7]

Oooooook long awaited update. I have my model basically 99% done (though every time I say that it turns out it's more like 2%). What you see in these images is the exact shape that will be cut on the CNC. The blue area is a flange which is used for a number of things when I'm actually laying up the material. I have moved the brake ducts to a separate mold for machining purposes (to make it possible). mmmm What else.....yes, im typing as i think theres no time for editing. I have yet to nail down the material that I'm going to use be it carbon fiber or fiberglass since weight can end up similar, cost is most certainly not similar, this is a non-structural component, and I plan on painting it. ah and I also moved the brake ducts outwards a bit like I said I would in the first post

Without further ado:


[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]


So I'm on break now and when I get back to class hopefully I will be cutting this thing out and actually doing it instead of looking at it in pixels, because that is quite old now.


And for those of you with the oddly specific combo of an e46 330ci with mtech2 front end, I'd quickly like to share what I'm whipping up for my good friend, "whipping" as an under-exaggeration of how difficult it has been. Not done yet.

[IMG][/IMG]

[ncbrock]

More info on what school you go to? Interesting to see a program specifically for composite technology.

[Wergen7]

http://iyrs.edu/

Don't be fooled by pictures of dirty hands, they don't take pictures when we're standing around.

[Wergen7]

About time again that I put in an update. Class is over and I'm at the internship portion of school. More on that in a moment. So it took forever to get myself on the CNC with 17 other damn people in the class at the same time. If you like all nighters, may I suggest purchase and sharing of a CNC. What aggravates me the most is that I wasn't able to finish my valence in class, only cut the molds, on the last day, actually after the last day. I could rant for hours. In the end I'm just glad I could cut the molds, the rest I'll do later.

The following are some shots of the process.

Here is the stock pieces made of MDF. Pretty heavy stuff I think I used almost four 4x8 sheets so these girls weighed in near 200lbs I'd guess. Pretty awesome to lug around the shop. Those on top are the separate pieces for the brake ducts which I don't have pictures of finished, had to do those separate.

[IMG][/IMG]

Before all that I had to make tool paths for the mold in RhinoCam, a plugin to Rhino. The following two videos are of a tube you'll see in a second, rough cut pass then finish cut pass, both in super fast motion. That tube took more like 3 hours maybe more. The valence all said and done was about 12 hours+ machine time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pyUvQ9sG2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG4QjYxza60

And if you want to know what 12 hours is like watch this entire 5 minute video and get a grasp on it. It moves half a millimeter each pass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apy5i4mweiM

Anyway, here's the middle section all set to roll in the machine:

[IMG][/IMG]

Then we have it at the end of the roughing pass:

[IMG][/IMG]

Now half way through the finish pass:

[IMG][/IMG]

Now I had to do some trick shit to get the side pieces to work without the collet hitting them and what not because of angles and stuff, since I was only allowed to use 3 axis, still mad about that. But one all nighter later and waalaa (I know the french don't spell it quite like that)

[IMG][/IMG]

So that guy looks just like that right now in my basement at home. It needs several hours work in order to be ready to pull a part off it but eventually it'll be as sexy as this:

[IMG][/IMG]

Which is a perfect segue into that air box I mentioned earlier, which I made much more progress on and I'm just gonna show it here because it's carbon fiber :) But yeah a lot of hassle and a bajillion molds later and I ended up with this image here, showing it in its rough form, I have to trim it up more and clear coat the hell out of it so it looks nice for the layman I'm making it for.. Plus I mean everything looks better with clear coat right? Unfortunately the in-mold clear coat didn't stick hence the shotty finish on the scoop

[IMG][/IMG]

So thats that. And yet again my life choices prevent me from working on this valence or my car since I'm now right near San Francisco on my internship for a month, then I may or may not move here and not work on my car even longer. Damn.

Thanks for looking! More updates in the next 30 years maybe.

[glnr13]

wow, that's badass. very cool to see the process.