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3D printed plastic gears in the electric car charging pad

3D printed plastic gears for charging system for electric cars

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What was needed: Plastic gears for prototypes
Manufacturing process: igus® 3D printing service
Requirements: wear resistance, robustness, fast delivery
Material: iglidur ® i6
Industry: Automotive
Success through cooperation: Time savings through simple online configuration and fast delivery, elimination of tool costs, variety of variants

Easelink, a company from Graz, has developed "Matrix Charging", a charging system consisting of two components. A charging pad is installed in the car park and connected to the power grid. There is a connector on the underside of the electric car, which is lowered onto the pad when it is parked. Power transmission starts automatically without the driver having to connect a cable - similar to inductive charging, but with up to ten times the charging power and 99 per cent transmission efficiency.During development, the designers have to approach a component ready for series production slowly over several prototypes. In order to minimise costs and still achieve high quality, they used the igus® 3D printing service.

Time and cost savings with the igus® 3D printing service

The future is said to lie in e-mobility. However, electric cars have not yet been able to gain widespread acceptance. An important factor is that the charging infrastructure is not yet sufficiently developed. Many drivers do not have sufficient charging options. Easelink wants to change this. The company from Graz has developed "Matrix Charging", a charging system consisting of two components. A charging pad is installed in the car park and connected to the power grid. A connector is located on the underside of the electric car, which is lowered onto the pad when the car is parked. Power transmission starts automatically without the driver having to connect a cable - similar to inductive charging, but with up to ten times the charging power and 99 per cent transmission efficiency.During development, the designers have to approach a component ready for series production slowly over several prototypes. If costs and time get out of hand during this phase, prototype production can become a stumbling block. However, Easelink has shown skill in the production of the components. This is because the gear wheels in the mechanics of the connector prototypes come from the 3D printer.

Matrix Charger with 3D-printed gears made of iglidur material with an electric car

Configured quickly online

Matrix Charger with 3D-printed gears made of iglidur material

An online design for gear at the igus® 3D printing service takes around 60 seconds. Delivery then takes 24 hours. This is different to gear wheels, which are produced using industrial printers and are ready for dispatch in up to 3 days. "High flexibility and fast delivery times are crucial when building prototypes," says Easelink founder Hermann Stockinger. "It is precisely this specification that we appreciate about the possibility of quickly selecting and printing a wide range of variants from igus® gear using the online configurator."

Another advantage, in addition to the unbeatable time savings, is the cost-effectiveness of the igus® service, as all tool costs are eliminated. The designer only has to select the tooth module and specify the number of teeth and the torque transmission. The configurator creates a 3D model of the gear, the basis for 3D printing. Hundreds of variants of simple gears and double gears can be realised without the need for computer-aided design (CAD) software.

iglidur® i6 for high wear resistance

The iglidur® i6 is particularly suitable as a printing material for gears. The high-performance plastic defies ambient temperatures from -40 to +80 degrees Celsius, is pressure-resistant up to 44 MPa and has a high abrasion resistance. Laboratory tests have proven that it is significantly more robust than the classic plastic polyoxymetylene (POM). In these tests, gears were run at 12 revolutions per minute and loaded with 5 Nm. The result: the 3D-printed gear made of iglidur® i6 was still fully functional even after one million cycles, with hardly any measurable wear. A milled gear made of POM was different. It was worn out after 321,000 cycles and broken after 621,000.