I am curious about the material they use. They say it is a wood-fiber-based material that "smells like cookies". The most commonly available material that fit this description is wood-filled PLA.
Problem is that PLA in a hot car will deform, so that's probably not ideal for a camper van. For car interiors, ABS is usually recommended, so maybe it is wood filled ABS, which is less common than for PLA, but it exists. Problem with ABS is that it is harder to print, especially for large parts, because of thermal expansion. And if you tell me that ABS smells like cookies, then there is something very wrong with your cookies.
If they have heated chambers for their printers, ASA/ABS shouldn’t be too much of an issue. I print ASA on the regular without a heated chamber (but with a heat soaked enclosure), and I can print fairly large parts without too much warping (200x160x100 worst case scenario). I’m fairly confident another 10-15° (up from the 35-40° my enclosure is now) and I would eliminate the warping completely.
They would just need a bit of XYZ compensation to manage the shrinking, but that seems completely reasonable for a commercial endeavour. It seems much more reasonable than using PLA or PETG, neither of which would survive a summer afternoon sun beating down on them.
Density of PETG (a reasonably durable and temperature-resistant plastic that's much easier to work with than ABS or nylon) is around 1.25 g/cm3 IIRC. Compare that to wood (pine at around 0.4 ~ 0.5 g/cm3 or maple (~0.7 g/cm3).
For the plastic structures to be sturdy, they have to be printed with significant infill, or at least painstakingly designed incorporating familiar structural elements (triangles, i-beams, gussets etc) at 100% infill -- in either case, making them as heavy or heavier than a comparable wood structure. I doubt the "lightweight" claim here.
I get the "throw robots at the problem" idea, but you could similarly automate the process with CNC machines and thin wood panels. I have some experience in working with both types of materials, and in most cases, design turns out to be the most challenging and time-consuming part.
1.25g x 0.6 fill % (very high % / generous in my view) is still 0.75g, on par with a hard wood.
But density to me is not what I'd look at. If you could have something twice heavy but that was 100x stronger as a structural material, that obviously would be an epic win.
Maybe it's less dense, but a lot of van builds use a lot of 2x4's or other fairly bulky wood. My hope is that the volume of the structure is much much less with good 3d printing.
Building a layer cake of cc'ed thin wood panels would probably work, sure. It feels like a specific skill, a specific technique. Part of what's neat about 3d printing is that the manufacturing skills are transferable, that you can laterally apply it quickly to all kinds of problems, without trapping with a specific set of constraints (additive wood paneling requiring some CNC skills, some gluing/affixing panel skills). I get the appeal.
Design can be a perk. That people can shape their own ideas & forms is an enticing offer. We struggle right now to imagine our 8 year old with a metaball editor like truSpace designing our camper vans or our house furniture. The barrier isn't low enough. But I think there is a joy people would have widdling and carving & nudging the forms in the world about them. We don't really have the open design systems to play freely yet; that hinders the creative flow suggested by this article. Especially if we can just throw our bench into the hopper and rebuild it (after 4 days of printing, lol), and with some solid starting places & high level editor software (VR painting, anyone?), some people would relish being able to craft their world. Design can be a joy.
I’m struggling to see why infill would need to be over 30%. I thought it was fairly well known that increasing infill does not significantly increase strength. More perimeters definitely do help, so maybe that’s what it being referred to (within the context of very thin panels)?
Many of these camper van interiors include a raised bed with storage underneath - generally you can't use the too-short-to-stand space properly, so it's a great way to add a ton of storage volume. I notice they didn't do that. Probably because the 3d printed interiors aren't strong enough yet.
Also those interiors, while reasonably attractive, look like something an engineer designed after reading a book about aesthetics. They need to iterate a couple of times on that design, and bring in some design experts familiar with these kinds of vans, to make an interior that's actually as optimized for cramped quarters as what's currently out there. Right now, their biggest selling point is that this doesn't weigh a whole lot. But it's not as attractive, and not as functional, as the competition. IMHO.
I agree, the light weight and parameterizability is really cool.
The aesthetics are absolutely not for me. I'd also be curious about the materials. Most wood blends are PLA based, which would not survive the southern california heat.
I love the idea, the ambition. I wish there was more big scale 3d printing out there.
I'd be curious to know how much deadspace these design have, how much fill and structure. In a camper van you really want every cubic centimeter, I imagine.
I feel like maybe the 3d printing world could benefit a lot from sparring, from support rods in use. I haven't spent a lot of time looking, but what options I've found seemed quite expensive, trying to purchase like 4 or 6 foot spars of hardwood or aluminum or steel or carbon fiber. That was a bit disappointing, but I haven't looked super hard. I'd hope this could drastically lower the needed volume, and reduce the amount of material needed to print massively.
Having borrowed a camper van with a nicely decorated wood interior, I can appreciate the need for lightweight. This one still had stock suspension, tires and engine designed for an empty cargo van, but it carried hundreds of lbs of hardwood cabinets. Beautiful, but totally impractical for making it up and down mountain passes in Colorado. At one point we were going 35 mph holding up a mile of traffic.
The low weight is the biggest benefit IMO. I spent a number of months travelling in a Class-C (box on a van chassis) motor home. I was surprised to learn they are made from plywood and so are extremely heavy, subject to water infiltration, etc.
A 3D printed, lightweight composite would do wonders for this industry.
Problem is that PLA in a hot car will deform, so that's probably not ideal for a camper van. For car interiors, ABS is usually recommended, so maybe it is wood filled ABS, which is less common than for PLA, but it exists. Problem with ABS is that it is harder to print, especially for large parts, because of thermal expansion. And if you tell me that ABS smells like cookies, then there is something very wrong with your cookies.