Another week is over, and with it a lot of interesting news published referring to the topic of 3D printing. We just picked a palmful of what appeared especially worth mentioning to us. Enjoy the ‘May Day’ weekend!

BMW Brings 3D Printed Race Technology to German Race Track

The German car manufacturer BMW announced this week to use a 3D printed water pump in their cars at the German Race Masters (DTM). One of the power-trains is fitted with a 500th light metal water pump wheel made on a 3D printer. This high-precision component, made from aluminum alloy has to endure to high stresses in a race and has to perform up to 70 percent of the time under full load. BMW engineers have been operating with additive production procedures in concept prototyping for a while now and they are trying to use SLM procedure for small series. Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is used to create a physical object from a generative layering process consisting of laser-fused metal powder in .0.5 millimeter increments. According to the company “all pump gear works flawlessly, confirming (our) leading role when it comes to additive production methods.” Let’s see what will be printed next!

Looking for a New Umbrella – KAZbrella Might Be a Solution

KAZbrella, is not a cat sitting inside an umbrella, but a ‘revolutionary’ reverse-engineered umbrella that opens and folds to the outside and appears to be the rising star on Kickstarter, This umbrella is 3D printed, cheap, functional and features a design that everybody could have invented. The truth is an aeronautical engineer, Jenan Kazim has been working on perfecting the design of the KAZbrella, for over 10 years. So it doesn’t seem to be a pushover. The new umbrella is supposed to be:

Dip free – opens inside out
Opens/closes in confined spaces – can close it into the smallest gap
Easy to open and close in a crowd – opens up and over the user
Strong in the wind – double steel spoked and extremely strong

The 3D printing process had an important impact in the design process. For the 3D designs, Jenan was supported by a family member who works as a 3D designer and transferred the sketches into 3D printable components. The very precise parts were printed in England with the help of the SLS method. If you are interested in supporting this project
If you are interested in supporting this project then have a look on Kickstarter. We are looking forward to trying the KAZbrella in person!

Written By

trinckle team