The3D printed snowboard : The First in the world

The Signal Snowboard’s factory crew, led by Founder Dave Lee give the board presses a rest this month and instead print out a brand new snowboard!

The concept of a 3D modelled board is interesting. I'm actually a CAD technician and this is really cool to see. I feel these could be used to make boards for beginners since theyre slow and theoretically cheap to make!


Using new 3D printer technology, Dave Lee and Signal Engineer Jeb Ferria input a basic CAD drawing along with a carbon-based powder into a state of the art Connex 500 printer—the end result is a radical powder gun (no not that kind of gun—a snowboard) ready for riding in the steep and deep of Colorado. Signal Teamrider Matt Guess and Dave Lee put the board through the paces, and it passes with flying powder. Another ETT success story!

 

 

Transkrip of video 3D printed snowboard :

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Until now, snowboards have been within the limits of traditional manufacturing.

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This month on ETT, we could quite possibly be giving you a glimpse into the future

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by building a snowboard on a whole new dimension.

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This is the world's first 3D-printed snowboard.

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I'm here with David, the founder of Grow It 3D

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and today we're gonna be digital printing a snowboard

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It's technology that like none other, a lot of people can't wrap their heads around it when they see it

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A lot of manufacturing methods, you're taking a block shaped object

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And removing material to get your final shape.

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Here we're actually taking that 3D final shape, slicing it into very thin layers

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and adding it layer by layer.

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That's the reason that Grow It is called Grow It

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If you put a time lapse camera on these machines, it actually looks like the part

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is growing out of the platform.

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Here are a few examples - like, this is printed

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This crescent wrench - it all works, it's one piece. Printed on a printer.

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Jeb and David are finalizing the file, we're about to go print a snowboard.

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We're limited on how big we can print currently so it's gonna be printed in puzzle pieces

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That is our snowboard, that fine powder material.

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It's a carbon mixture.

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The laser is being pointed by a bunch of mirrors, so there's no actual print head...

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no actual real moving part, other than the machine that's pointing the laser.

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A little bit different than our snowboard press. Quite a bit different.

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You're taking all these raw materials, and sandwiching them together.

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This is just creating it. It's like magic.

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This is like the paper tray.

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The first puzzle part of the snowboard right there.

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This is very much like slowly excavating the snowboard pieces.

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Alright, we're at the final stages, all pieces are out. Just taking the last of the carbon off.

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Then we'll heat blast 'em - and be ready to put it together.

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We have all of our pieces here - all really to be put together.

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It's a very exciting moment.

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All of it just pieces together.

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Then we're gonna resin it.

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So we have the whole board coated in resin, vacuum bagged up, and now it sits for like nine hours.

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Looking at this board, pushing on it, feelin it - I don't know... I really don't.

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She's a little flimsy

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We obviously didn't get a tight bond in the center of the board here, where it's most important.

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We went and bought a couple metal strips, and Jeb is drilling them out now.

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We're gonna reinforce the board with little metal rods.

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Sometimes you gotta make it work.

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We're here in a snowy secret spot in Colorado, back with Matt Guess with this crazy board.

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You ready to check it out? This thing is nuts.

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You guys are mad snowboard scientists.

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The nose feels good. We want it to go fast.

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The only issue we're having is speed - we wanted to try it in its purest form

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But if we could have added a base, probably no problem at all.

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You got all these interesting things going on, like this nose is something we've never tried before

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Where you have this wide nose, and it comes in at a sharp angle, and it comes out kinda a narrow board.

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And it really does go good when you're making turns with this big wide shovel nose.

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Unbelievable day. The back bowl in Colorado, by ourselves. On a board made with laser beams.

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SO fun.

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