#Industry News
Bi-Uni Convertible SLA 3D Printing Bicycle
Bi-Uni Convertible Bicycle
Model name: Bi-Uni convertible bicycle
Material: ProtoFab C101 Photo-reactive Resin
Production technique: SLA 3D printing
Lead time: 3 days
Precision: 0.01 mm
Lead time: 3 days
Client requirements: Solid construction, high-quality post-production
Project Background
We were contacted by the organizing committee of the 2017 Cross-Strait Industrial Design Awards with a request to provide professional prototype production for each of the competitors. With high-quality models produced for each of the products taking part, it would be much easier for them to show off their innovation and ingenious design.
The creators of this bicycle got in touch with us and sent us their impressive design. Their thinking was that despite technology advancing greatly over the past decades, bicycle design has hardly changed. This project sought to put that right by completely reimagining what a bicycle should look like and how it should work. The wheel design was inspired by those of a self-balancing scooter, and the bicycle can be split in two to form two separately ridable self-balancing unicycles. The ability to split into two parts also makes storage easier and greatly increases portability. Of course, it can still be ridden normally as a bicycle, but the ability to convert to self-balancing unicycles is what sets it apart from the rest.
Project Analysis
On receiving the client's drawings and requirements our design team promptly began their analysis, assessing the feasibility of the project and discussing minor adjustments to the construction. Due to the complexity of the design, it was decided that using CNC machining would result in excessive material, equipment and labor costs, as well as being too time-consuming. Due to this, our team selected SLA 3D printing as the way forward for the project. Not only would this be significantly quicker than CNC, it would also make post-processing more straightforward. Below is the drawing the client sent us.