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Nimrod Racing™
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András Szász Managing Director, Chief Designer
Nimrod Racing™
R/C Car Parts Company Races to Production with Components Produced on an Objet 3-D Printer
Racing
R/C vehicles is a popular hobby the world over, backed by a thriving
industry of designers and manufacturers catering to hobbyists’ desires
for great-looking and greatperforming miniature vehicles. Whether for
fun or competition, the operation of the R/C cars depends on a
multitude of small parts that need to work reliably and smoothly under
tough
conditions.
Budapest firm Nimrod Racing™ started off as
a technical office designing parts and assemblies for a variety of
uses. However, with its emphasis on following and setting new standards
in cutting edge design and product innovation, the company quickly
evolved into an expert designer and manufacturer of R/C car components.
Initially, Nimrod Racing depended on conventional 3-D milling, but as
the market changed, it realized it needed to progress to 3-D printing.
“The
‘make everything lighter’ trend in automobile manufacturing is the same
for R/C cars, so we needed to replace metal parts with plastic,” says
Ádám Novák, Designing Engineer at Nimrod Racing. “Also, the parts are
usually quite complex so 3D printing is faster than milling.”
Objet’s
unique 3-D printing technology and affordable Eden250 3D printer, which
produces fully cured, highly detailed and accurate models and parts
made of unique photopolymer materials, proved the perfect combination
for Nimrod Racing. János Márton Szász, managing engineer explains: “We
believe that Polyjet technology is the best 3-D printing technique.
The
resulting parts have superior mechanical properties so the parts can be
used as parts of assemblies. There is no warping or shrinkage during
the printing process, so we are able to achieve perfect dimensional
stability.”
The benefits that Nimrod Racing has realized as a result
of working with the Eden250 printer fall into the main categories of
time, creativity, and cost – which together have helped the
manufacturer improve its competitive position in the fast-paced market
for R/C car parts.
“We’re pushing the advantages of the Objet machine like nobody else before because our prototype parts are used as functional parts built into real R/C racing cars used on real
racecourses.”
The Eden printing system, is the quickest and most accurate ‘expert’ in our team because of its reliability, speed and cost
András Szász managing director, chief designer
Prior to installing the Eden250 3-D printer, moving new products from design to sales was a lengthy and waste-heavy process. After the design phase, the project was sent to manufacturing and then it could take six or seven months until the complete prototypes were returned. Nimrod Racing is in the exclusive modeling business and hence needed only a few of each part. However, the company would order many more pieces than needed because only a few of the prototypes would meet its exacting standards for perfection. This resulted in a huge
amount of waste products – and added cost.
Now that Nimrod Racing is able to manufacture the end parts in-house using its Eden250 3-D printer, time and product wastage is a thing of the past. “Today, we don’t need to consider long production phases; we can concentrate on our core activities of designing and engineering,”
says András Szász managing director, chief designer. “We start sketching in the morning and we often have the final plans on our desk in the afternoon. Then we start printing and let the
machine work unattended, so that the prototype is ready when the sun comes up – that’s how simple it is!”
“Our work became faster, and a lot more efficient, thanks to the quality and reliability of our Objet printer. It used to be that producing ultra-mini series, such as limited and numbered
editions, was simply unaffordable. Today, we are able to manufacture small numbers of parts for competitive prices. We’re pleased to be gaining a real presence in the market for highquality models, thanks to our Eden printer.”
More freedom to create
The half-year or longer wait for prototypes meant that Nimrod Racing’s supply time to customers was very slow, severely impacting its competitive power. And, working with outside
suppliers carried its own costs in terms of the time and hard costs of finding the right suppliers and then managing them.
The picture looks quite different today.János Márton Szász, managing engineer, explains:
“Thanks to our 3-D printer, we hold the production in our hands and don’t depend on any other parties. This means that the preparation of a new product is finished in less than two months!
Our engineers don’t spend any time searching for and keeping in touch with suppliers. Instead they only focus on their most important work: designing parts and printing prototypes to create mini-series.”
Reduced cost of error
To build its brand, Nimrod Racing aimed to produce a wide variety of R/C wheels, which meant a different tool was needed for each rim and wheel. The high number of tools raised
the primary costs and also carried a high cost of error as any malformation in the tool caused larger problems, particularly when it was not noticed early enough. “All in all, the production of tools was very expensive, error was unavoidable and so only large series were profitable,” says Ádám Novák, Designing Engineer.
Summarizing what Nimrod Racing has gained by choosing Objet technology for its 3-D printing needs, András Szász managing director, chief designer concluded: “Objet opened the door to the manufacturing of high-quality, yet cost effective, limited editions of parts. With the Eden250 printer, there’s no need to give tooling over to other engineering companies that
specialize in the making of costly tools.”
“The Eden printing system is the quickest and most accurate ‘expert’ in our team because of its reliability, speed and cost. Objet was definitely the right choice for our company.”
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