Have 3D printers and to provide them with the print files and recommendated settings to print somewhat bulky or soon to be/otherwise NLA plastic parts for the vehicles they service.
I think we all know someone who likely doesn't sunglasses for some unknown reason, who would go there just to get sun visor retaining clips.
That you think dealers would be remotely interested in providing that service is amusing.
$$$$$$$$$$$
NLA = Not Large Asset. Your example of a sun visor clip is perfect. The cost of the 3D printer, materials, etc... probably far outweighs the money they'd make printing sun visor clips, seat belt buckle covers and emblems.
I guess my question would be, why did they need to change the design on the sunvisor clip?
Slippery said:I guess my question would be, why did they need to change the design on the sunvisor clip?
This is how designers and engineers keep their jobs. If they stop coming out with new designs, they aren't needed.
To answer the original question. There isn't enough of this in it. No one is willing to pay what it would cost to print and if dealers charged what it was worth, customers would throw a temper tantrum. It's easier to just not offer it and blame it on the manufacturer.
Toyman! said:Slippery said:I guess my question would be, why did they need to change the design on the sunvisor clip?
This is how designers and engineers keep their jobs. If they stop coming out with new designs, they aren't needed.
As someone in that designer/engineer category, I can safely say it's not our conspiracy. For products that aren't instantly consumed or disposed continuous growth of stock price requires increased sales which requires a pipeline of new product. Depending on your view it's either a feature or a bug of shareholder capitalism.
This could be a good business idea for a privateer. If there is enough volume a crowd funding/group buy scenario could also work to make a molded part at a company like Protolabs.
It wouldn't be so bad if OEMs didn't go after people 3D printing their own substitutes like Honda did.
In reply to j_tso :
That's just the parts that had the brand "Honda" on them. Its totally understandable and I have no problem with it.
Even if it is only parts tagged "Honda" it is totally unreasonable, and I have a problem with it.
In reply to Racebrick :
They have a brand that they have to protect.
Its like when you buy OE parts and they have the logo filed off. Just remove the brand and make it without the branding on it.
Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:Have 3D printers and to provide them with the print files and recommendated settings to print somewhat bulky or soon to be/otherwise NLA plastic parts for the vehicles they service.
I think we all know someone who likely doesn't sunglasses for some unknown reason, who would go there just to get sun visor retaining clips.
You are basically recommending that every dealership hire a minimum of 2 people for this. Its not just pulling up a part's model, sending it to the printer, and handing it over the next day.
It would make more sense for manufacturers to release these files, allow the aftermarket to buy/lease them and then print them individually.
Mr_Asa said:It would make more sense for manufacturers to release these files, allow the aftermarket to buy/lease them and then print them individually.
Dude! That's actually kinda brilliant. MFG could charge a buck to download the print file for an NLA part, and you could DIY on the Ender-3 or whatever is sitting on the table in the corner? That would be awesome.
Slippery said:In reply to j_tso :
That's just the parts that had the brand "Honda" on them. Its totally understandable and I have no problem with it.
No, they were tagged with Honda. Some items didn't have the logo, some didn't even come from a Honda design (parts designed to fit in a cupholder, or whatnot, but labeled as the cupholder for a specific car)
Sure. Protect the brand. However when you have to print something in your own home for 2-24 hours, sand it, paint it, etc I don't think there's a concern with the person downloading the file being confused as to whether or not it is a Honda approved part.
Slippery said:They have a brand that they have to protect.
Its like when you buy OE parts and they have the logo filed off. Just remove the brand and make it without the branding on it.
I understand using logos or passing them off as OEM, but they took down anything mentioning Honda. Some parts were allowed back since though.
In fact, many of the removed parts had no Honda branding but were just compatible with Honda vehicles. As it turns out, Prusa says it was issued a takedown notice from Honda and removed all 3D models that referenced the brand.
I could see a decent revenue stream coming from a manufacturer that could partner with a professional additive printing outfit to have a line of "official" parts for older vehicles. Use the original designs to create a printable file and the 3rd party could pay back a royalty for every one they print and sell. It'd be fairly low overhead for the manufacturer and they'd have NDAs and legal protections for their original designs. Sure, you could go download a file that someone created or for only dollars-ninety-nine, you can order up the part from a printer that's got an actual part number on it and confidence that it's going to be printed from the right material and to the correct specifications. I know that I'm looking forward to this new whiz-bang resin printer that my wife has ordered so that I can download and print up a window guide for the Neon. Those were crappily-built, didn't hold up over time at all, and have been NLA for almost two decades.
Toyman! said:To answer the original question. There isn't enough of this in it. No one is willing to pay what it would cost to print and if dealers charged what it was worth, customers would throw a temper tantrum. It's easier to just not offer it and blame it on the manufacturer.
If you try to print something like a sun visor clip through a cheap online 3D printing service, it's going to cost around $30, and probably 2/3rds of that is going to the person doing the printing, so look at $20 minimum cost for a little plastic doodad that will take at least a few hours to produce.
Toyman! said:Slippery said:I guess my question would be, why did they need to change the design on the sunvisor clip?
This is how designers and engineers keep their jobs. If they stop coming out with new designs, they aren't needed.
I always thought German cars had this problem , so many engineers to keep busy !
Racebrick said:Even if it is only parts tagged "Honda" it is totally unreasonable, and I have a problem with it.
Reminds me of the '90s. I was an auto claims appraiser then and Pontiac was really big on the body cladding along the doors. It had "Pontiac" printed on it, or some other logo. Therefore, aftermarket wasn't available. GM charged like $600 each, in 1990s money, for the parts. I totaled several Pontiacs simply because the cladding was damaged, along with minor sheet metal.
Manufacturers don't care about dealership cost. Dealerships are merely a franchise to them and most are terribly run as it's a business model built upon nepotism. Even those of us to love cars hate dealerships.
Bottom line is that if it's going to cost a dealership an extra $90k a year to have a few 3D printers operating and it saves the manufacturer commercial warehousing space in a parts depot, the manufacturer would be up for doing so every time.
Manufacturers also wouldn't be up for licensing to the aftermarket, as then they wouldn't reep any rewards or new product exposure. They'd only gain licensing revenue or something that once it's out, would become everywhere so that revenue would be incredibly small. Keeping it in house at the dealership level allows them to have control of the files throughout the process at a net cost savings to the manufacturer. (Remember, manufacturers actually don't give a crap about dealership profits or overhead).
I think a better question would be: Why aren't manufacturers required to open-source their designs once they stop producing them?
I mean I understand why, but wow that would be pretty much universally awesome if that happened.
I'm surprised O'reilly/autozone/advance hasn't tried breaking into this realm. Setup each store with a printer, train the management staff to use it, license NLA parts from manufacturers, profit.
To run such a scheme would require commercial-grade additive manufacturing printers. Which are vastly more expensive than your standard hobbyist-thing. The hobbyist-grade printers are not up to the task of continuous or discontinuous use. There is a Goldilocks zone for how much they can/can't do and how often they need to be used. And you need to understand the limitations of the material properties of different printer types. You also need to be an expert in setup to get objects oriented properly for correct printing. This is a trial and error thing for the average hobbyist, but for someone running a commercial gig this is non-trivial.
Then you add in the lack of quality control. Part of buying an OEM part is that QA has occurred. No such QA would occur at a dealer or parts store. So, parts couldn't be warrantied in this way and the end result would be more and more issues. None of that spells profit to anyone.
But what would be useful is to get 3D scan files of parts. Unfortunately, I doubt seriously any OEM will be releasing those files. They are proprietary and required significant investment to make. Once released to the general public even once, those files are no longer profitable for the OEM. Even if you discontinue the product, you may want to remake it some day and losing your ability to do so for profit would be a poor business decision. And if you doubt, Aston Martin, Jaguar, BMW, and Porsche are all now building new parts for old cars for restoration purposes.
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One better solution would be for a hobbyist to purchase two 3D scanners that can accurately scan large and small parts. You could then ship your part to them which they can scan and send you back your part and copies of the files in various formats for a fee. This way you can get your own 3D files to send out to your machine shop or your 3D printer or whatever.
Example: Right now, I'm drawing up a piece to use a screw-in Moog-type balljoint to be attached to a Sunbeam Alpine/Tiger lower control arm in CAD. It would be incredibly useful to have a high-res 3D model of the original Sunbeam balljoint that I could manipulate and convert. Which would preserve the geometry better than my eyeball and angle gauge (which do work, of course). Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner on hand that can both scan to high-enough resolution and has a scan area that is large enough for a fist-sized balljoint.
iansane said:I'm surprised O'reilly/autozone/advance hasn't tried breaking into this realm. Setup each store with a printer, train the management staff to use it, license NLA parts from manufacturers, profit.
This seems like the answer to the problem of finding miscellaneous small parts for an older vehicle that someone is trying to keep going.
The expense would be setting up the digital files for the parts and making sure the 3-D printouts are accurate enough to fit like OEM.
iansane said:I'm surprised O'reilly/autozone/advance hasn't tried breaking into this realm. Setup each store with a printer, train the management staff to use it, license NLA parts from manufacturers, profit.
Having worked at PepBoys...
LOL.
I know why. I know exactly why.
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