BMW 3D printer to make spare parts on the road

The latest from BMW is a motorcycle top-box mounted 3D printer so riders can make their own spare parts on the side of the road in Patagonia or wherever. **LINK**

Dealerships will also have larger printers to make up parts on site instead of carrying stock.

Gimmick or the way of the future? Time will tell I guess.

Was the date of the article significant or just coincidental?

Latest in a log line.

Having had some experience with iffy electronics / circuit boards with BMW bikes in the late 1980's -90's, maybe they should outfit them with a mini PCB lab and solder station too....

Will they also include a tank mounted furnace and foundry to cast aluminum parts roadside, to 3D printed patterns? Maybe a Sieg mill in a side box?

Just silly really.

I have a friend who traveled the bike-able world on a BMW bike with his wife after he retired. He said he found there were very few places in the world where he was more than a few hundred km from a BMW parts depot, and very few places he could not find a mechanic to get repairs he could not do himself. He only had a couple of serious repairs to do, in almost two hundred thousand km of riding.

Didn't BMW run a spoof ad touting remote monitoring of tire pressures and hasn't that come to pass?

I well remember the steering wheel which could be moved from one side of the car to the other.

Don't know if the BMW ad is an April-fool but Porsche have been 3D printing/sintering small-runs of old parts for a while but not on-vehicle !.
Where reasonable demand exists and the tooling is still available/in good condition they will do a production run.
Where demand is low or tooling is life-expired they do a 3D print run.
The quality must be good, one printed part is a cranked/pivoted clutch operating lever so a fair bit of stress on that.
DaveD

Porsche ... 3D printing: **LINK**

https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/company/porsche-classic-3d-printer-spare-parts-sls-printer-production-cars-innovative-14816.html

MichaelG.

To produce a short run of pressings we had a department where a panel would be used as a mould to make a low melting point alloy press tool to make about 100 panels, probably wouldn’t fit in a top box though!

Mike

But where do you put a lap top, an adequate supply of power and plastic. I’d rather have a stove,food , tent and sleeping bag, but I wonder if it will print the spanner needed to fit the component? However, 3 d printing of metal parts has real application fir medica uses esp in skull trauma, and I hear Boeing are considering it for spares.

Edited By Zan on 25/10/2018 01:13:35

Or just ride a Harley and get spare parts at any local tractor shop.

From what I hear 3d printer take that long it would be quicker to push the bike to the next repair shop

Good grief, it's a spoof! BMW do one every year.

Must be zany German humour again !

Funny thing is if i were trying to sell bikes the last thing i would refer to is something that bolts on to the bike so you can make spare parts ! Does this infer that this bike is going to break down a lot ?

It is a bit like Selling a British made bike that comes with a life time supply of gasket sealer and fold up drip tray .