HOW ARE 3D HOUSING PARTS MADE?

Keen to know how 3D printing is used? In this short video we show you how the housing parts for our lightweight bearings are made.

Franke lightweight bearings with housing parts from the 3D printer are probably the lightest bearing assemblies in the world. The aluminum body parts are 3D printed. Made from the finest aluminum granules and equipped with a lightweight yet solid honeycomb structure, they are up to 90% lighter than conventional steel bearings.

How does this work?
First, the components are created in a CAD program. The program slices the component into innumerable layers in order to send the laser to the right track level by level. The aluminium powder is solidified by laser beam at those points which later form the housing parts. After each laser layer, new powder is applied and laser-etched again. Until the whole part is printed. To use all of the available working space of the printer, several parts are printed simultaneously. In our case, four complete bearings could be manufactured in one operation. The printing lasted 13 hours.