3D Printing News: Škoda Printables Parts, BigRep and More
By Dynafabs
3D printing news: Škoda's free Printly Clever car accessories, BigRep's ALTRA 670, a 171 g printed bike saddle and dentures for free care.
The last couple of days have been a good reminder that 3D printing isn't one industry but several. A carmaker is handing out printable accessories, a large-format printer maker has changed owners, and researchers are printing everything from bike saddles to tooling you dissolve in water. Here's what caught our eye, with the original sources linked so you can read the full stories.
Škoda puts free car accessories on Printables
The story we liked most this week comes from Škoda Auto. According to 3DPrint.com's 29 October news briefs, the Czech carmaker has extended its "Simply Clever" range with a set of free, downloadable 3D-printable accessories called Printly Clever, hosted on Printables.com. The report says it may be the first carmaker to offer custom printable add-ons through a dedicated platform.
The range covers cupholders, coin boxes, cable management, phone brackets, top tether hooks (the most popular so far, apparently) and even a holder for chips. Most pieces use the car's existing storage compartments, so there's no need to modify the vehicle, and they're compatible with current Škoda models and many discontinued ones. Škoda says it reads Printables user feedback to decide what to design next.
For us, this is exactly the kind of thing 3D printing does well: small, practical parts with no tooling, no stock and no long wait. If you don't own a printer, you can send a file you're allowed to print to Dynafabs and we'll make it. Always check the licence on each file first. For anything that lives in a hot car, our materials guide explains why PETG or ASA usually beats PLA.
BigRep goes private and opens ALTRA 670 orders
On the large-format side, FilamentFeed reports that Berlin-based BigRep is privately held again, about two years after its IPO. Citing 3D Printing Industry, it says shareholders approved a simpler structure, and BigRep GmbH is now owned by three family firms that were already investors: Koehler Invest, DeKrassny and Hage Holding.
At the same time, BigRep opened worldwide orders for the ALTRA 670. It's a high-temperature extrusion printer with a 1200 x 700 x 800 mm build volume and a 140 °C chamber, built for high-temperature polymers. BigRep says the first series units are already in production.
A 171 g unibody bike saddle
The same 3DPrint.com briefs cover the Air One saddle from the Activewear Design Team at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which has won a Red Dot design award. The team describes it as the world's first unibody 3D-printed bicycle saddle made as a single piece, based on a 3D looping knitted structure.
The tricky part was making the load-bearing rails strong without adding weight. The team used a Markforged Mark Two with continuous fibre reinforcement and Onyx base material, and a team member tested it on the road for over 1,000 km. Team lead Dr Ho Chu Po says the saddle weighs just 171 g, and that the shape or the internal lattice density can be changed to suit an individual rider.
Tooling you dissolve in water
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, working with Infinite Composites, JuggerBot 3D and Oklahoma State University, won an Award for Composites Excellence at CAMX for a large-format, 3D-printed, water-soluble mandrel, again according to 3DPrint.com. Carbon fibre composite is wound around the printed mandrel, and once it has cured, the mandrel is washed out with water. What's left is a linerless Type V pressure vessel for gases such as hydrogen and compressed natural gas. Printing the mandrel replaces expensive metal or collapsible tooling.
Dentures, satellites and a community fund
A few more items from the past couple of days:
- 3D Systems donated a NextDent 300 printer to the US nonprofit Remote Area Medical on 29 October. It prints dentures with the teeth and gums as a single piece. It's already running in Knoxville, Tennessee, and will move into a mobile dental lab once that's finished.
- Horizon Microtechnologies has received about €500,000 in grant funding for a two-year project to industrialise metallised, polymer micro-printed parts for satellites, aiming for up to 50,000 coated shielding housings.
- MELD PrintWorks is building a 12,000 sq ft additive manufacturing facility in Christiansburg, Virginia, due in 2027, for larger solid-state metal parts.
- Snapmaker named 20 Phase 1 winners of its Innovation Fund for the U1 toolchanger. Phase 2 is open, and submissions close on 24 December.
What it means if you're ordering prints
Three takeaways for everyday projects:
1. Printable spares and accessories are going mainstream. When a carmaker publishes files, more people will want them printed in the right material. 2. Big and strong are different jobs. Large-format machines and fibre-reinforced parts both have their place, and so does a well-chosen engineering filament on a desktop printer. 3. Design freedom is the real win. Lattices, unibody parts and dissolvable tooling all come from shapes that are hard to make any other way.
FAQ
Can Dynafabs print the Škoda Printly Clever accessories? If the file's licence allows it, yes. Upload it to our quote page and tell us what it's for, and we'll suggest a material that copes with heat in a car.
Is Dynafabs connected to any of these companies? No. This is industry news we've read and summarised. Follow the links to the original sources for full details.
Can you print large-format or carbon-fibre parts? Send us your file and requirements through the quote page and we'll tell you what we can do and suggest the best option.
Got a file waiting to become a real part? Upload your STL, 3MF, STEP or ZIP at dynafabs.uk/quote. You don't need an account to get a quote.
--- #Dynafabs #3DPrinting #3DPrintingNews #Skoda #BigRep #AdditiveManufacturing #MadeInUK