3: The Pancake Bike and Process Pains

Hello. And good day to you from episode three of our new podcast series Project Breakaway. A metaphorical and literal time in the day when we here at Predator Cycling take some time away from working in the back shop to come and share with our listeners what we're doing, how we're doing it, what it takes to do it, our ideas, our innovative success stories, and even our missteps and failures. If you find yourself with an interest in bicycles, composite manufacturing, out of the box design, or even curiosities beyond, I encourage you to stick with us, settle in, and learn a little. I'm Courtney B, co-owner and project manager of Predator Cycling. I'm here with my partner Aram Goganian, the other co-owner, CEO, lead designer, and engineer, and general man of mystery. Cool. How are you, Aram? How's it going going over there? Uh, it's going okay. Just okay? Yeah, today's uh today's a kind of a crazy day, so um Definitely a case of the Mondays. Definitely, definitely a Monday. Um Yeah, and uh last week was a little bit of all over the place, so just trying to recover and try and finish the year strong. Right. Well, we're heading into the holidays, so everything gets a little crazy. For sure. So, let's jump into it here. Um I know on our last episode, we uh alluded to this week's episode saying that we were going to cover a simulation, simulations design. Um but while working here in the back of the shop last week, we're working on a project for our son, actually, um for a holiday present. Mhm. Um and we ran into a lot of problems. So, I wanted to put the simulation discussion that I mentioned on pause uh and discuss the current situation, uh that is our 2-year-old son's push bike, uh carbon fiber push bike that we're making. And we're making it as a supplemental video to a LinkedIn class that you are developing uh for release sometime here in 2021. Um so, basically, we had a huge failure. Yeah, well, yes. Um Yes, we did. So, we've been working on this, as Courtney said, we're working on this push bike for our son. Um And a push bike, just for people who don't know what a push bike is, is essentially a little bike um without pedals. Right. Also, people call it a balance bike as well. Yeah. So, that he can learn the ideas, you know, he's two, to learn how to balance on the bike, and then you, I mean, I don't know this is the right philosophy of how to teach someone to ride a bike, but I had training wheels, but you are against training wheels. So, we're going straight from a push bike to a two-wheeler. Yep. So, that's the plan, anyway. So, we decided uh hey, it'd be really awesome, maybe, if uh you know, Santa came down the chimney with a carbon fiber push bike. Right. But you know, we tried to throw it into our already existing massive pile of work. So, we threw it in there, and we had a big issue with materials and the process, and Yeah. You can go into further explanation with that, but we thought it'd be fun to talk about, I guess. Yeah, well, I mean, we I mean, it kind of rolls back to the concept of this podcast is just to really talk about the stuff that we're doing and working on, and um as Courtney says, our our successes and our failures. Um and this kind of I don't know if I quite put it in the full failure category. I definitely put it in the unsuccessful category. Um Right. Well, I think the idea was we thought we really had it. We did. So, And we came in and Yeah, I was not expecting it to not work. Essentially, it imploded on itself. It did. So, explain So, yeah, I'll give you a little background here. So, basically, what we're working on is um it's part of a system that we did a long time ago um for what we thought was going to be a major manufacturing platform for us. Um and we basically made um 3D printable to high temperature cores um that we can wrap in uh carbon fiber pre-pregs, and then bake it, and then um ramp the vacuum on the part in conjunction with the heat ramp, so that we could get a really good solid part. Um so, we've been testing this for years with different materials, and kind of running some problems and some successes, and we finally got it down right. Um and we've been pretty successful. We've been doing quite a few test runs, we're doing a bunch of stuff, and it's been working. Small parts. Um higher vacuum parts, higher consolidation parts, um even higher temperature parts than what we did on this one. Um there was one part that we didn't really account for, and that was on this particular project, there was a core as well as a mold that indexed the part like to kind of like hold everything in place, because it was kind of a complicated part. Um and I had not accounted for um the thermal properties of the core of of the of the mold. Um so, one of the things that happened was um also because of the way we had the mold set up, um it was a little bit more strain on the core than there should have been. Um and we ramped it up, and I didn't account for how the heat was going to move throughout the core, and it caused too much pressure to be on the unsupported side of the core, and it crushed it. So, let's dumb this down a little bit, because Yes. People might uh not picture what you're talking about. So, picture the the frame of a toddler bike. Yeah. Um we essentially print, 3D printed uh a core for that bike. Mhm. So, the inside of it, right? Yes, the inside of the bike. Um so, you have, I don't know, two two feet long, you talking about? Yeah, smaller than that, for the Smaller than that. Okay, so quite a big part. We've got it molded, we've got it all put together. We laid up pre-preg carbon on it, pre-impregnated with epoxy, which we thought we did a really good job in wrapping a bike or wrapping any part part. It's just tedious, and it takes a long time, and you got to put the fibers in a certain direction, and Right. make every it's it's it's long, and you know, you're interrupted, you got to go do this, you do this. Anyway, you come back to the bike, we thought it was really great. And then you put that into a a mold. Right. Essentially, most molds are made out of metal, but we use other types of materials as well. So, this material we use we've used before. Uh-huh. And we didn't even think about, you know, Yeah, we well, so yeah, usually, in most cases, when you have cores, you don't actually use a a mold surface as well. Um we did in this part, because the the core it's kind of like a puzzle piece, and it kind of fits all together, and it's not ha it doesn't have its own integrity to like hold itself together. So, we used the mold as like an indexer. Plus, your LinkedIn class that is associated with this is based on the design of a mold, right? Yeah, so the it's kind of a double prong. So, anyways, I guess one backup step here is I I am working on a LinkedIn course, which is designing a um it's how to design for composites a consumer product from start to finish. So, conceptual design all the way through mold construction, fiber layup orientation concepts, um simulation and manufacturing. Um and so, we were using this as an example, and uh we wanted to make sure we used a process that was um easy to understand, also um it used a couple different types of components that were really useful for someone who's a um uh a designer or a a product, you know, a product engineer to understand how this all going to work. So, um that's why we went about it the way we did on how to make this part. So, there's a the mold's really important from from a learning perspective, also for how to index the part correctly. Right. Um Okay. So, it's kind of a double prong thing, but uh yeah, the the mold we typically for cores don't use molds like this. Um so, it was a little different, but we'd used that material for, I mean, for years we've been using this. Um it's a tooling board, high temperature tooling board material that we've been using forever. And we know that it doesn't it it works more of an insulator um for heat, but uh we never expected it to do this. So, we basically had a a cool spot on the on the core, and a hot spot on the core, and kind of over vacuum Right. So, go back to the process. We made the we made the frame, we stuck the frame in this high temperature board mold. Yeah. And then you bagged it. Yep. You sealed it. You introduced vacuum for pressure, and heat for curing. Mhm. Now, proceed. Yeah, so what basically what happened is we had a problem where we had a one side of the part was was cooler than the other side of the part. So, when the vacuum started, we ended up getting more vacuum on one side of the part than the other side of the part, and so the core basically imploded on itself, because it because one side of it wasn't compressing, um it was forcing all the the the the pressure to the other side. So, we essentially had double the pressure than we should have had. Um and we also slightly over-ramp the materials on what we slightly over-ramp the temperature on one side of the mold, because we have the tooling board. And because of that, we were slightly over our temperature ideal temperature, and we doubled ended up doubling the pressure on one side of the part. So, it kind of those two things together And we had tested this material, this core material, 3D print core material what, three or four times prior. Yeah, but We just changed That combination we didn't test. And we changed the vacuum. We changed the we changed the heat very slightly, but we also introduced the mold material. Introduced the mold material and the vacuum. And now, we were left with a uh instead of your your general tube tube bike, we we made a pancake. Pancake. A lumpy pancake bike. A lumpy pancake. So, if anyone's interested in that product, I have one for you. But, we learned from it, and we figured out where we went wrong. Yeah. And we uh it might not be ready in time for Christmas, but our meeting Christmas is on January 6th. So, Right. So, it'll be ready for that. We might have a bike for him for that. Um but yeah, but in you know, the the other thing is is that anyone that's kind of worked in this sector of especially when you're building out your own profiles for like manufacturing manufacturing platforms to go to production. Um I think you we've all experienced um problems like this, and it's super annoying, it's frustrating, but you know, the big thing is is to kind of like learn from it and figure out what you did wrong. Mhm. Um and you know, correct it, and then understand the situation, so that we can fix it and move on um uh and improve on our systems, so that we don't make that same mistake again. Mhm. Um and that's kind of like so, this so, it's kind of I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this altogether, but one of the things that we've been working here uh we've been chasing this concept of how to make um you know, the ultimate composite parts for bicycles. Um and the RF20 is kind of that is all of that work put into place, like put together. The RF20 is that. Um but when we started on this path to get there, we were thinking that this core system that we used for this push bike was a like we were I mean, rewind, you know, almost six years ago, and that we thought that was our path, like we were very cl we were pushing on that direction really really really hard. Um and we we um we thought that building a either 3D printed core or a machined core system that could take high temperature or, you know, using some sort of um internal system like that, we could make the ultimate bikes. And we kind of realized that it gave us a lot of flexibility, but it didn't give us some of the property benefits that we wanted on a production side. Um and that's what kind of led us down uh the the path of the RF20, but also we always had this system that we had used um that we used for this push bike. Um So, I think that the failure of this push bike process um because of all the things that happened, it's a perfect example of our development process over those last six years, and how we've tested so many ways to create a mold, so many ways to create a core, so many ways. Um so, we wanted to discuss our three different types of manufacturing platforms that we are currently going forward with coming in 2021. Yes. So, you're discussing the RF20, our road frame. Yes. So, continue with that. I just wanted to give it that we have we have three types of manufacturing. So, the RF20 is a is a example of the you know, purpose-built high-quality part. Yeah, so the RF20 yes, exactly. Thank you. And a traditional molding style. Uh right. So, the RF20 is a is is much more of a conventional um manufacturing methodology for composites. So, we're talking about, you know, you have a a metal mold, um it's either a completely fixed mold or it's a semi-modular mold, so you can have different inserts to make angles and changes. Um and then you have basically internal pressure that's basically just pressurizing that internal part of the bike and compressing that fiber against the mold surface. Um and you can create really high-quality parts that way. And and the RF20 is special in a lot of ways, because we use mandrels, and we get higher pressures, and we can equalize our temperatures really effectively. Um and we can still do it all in a cost-effective manner. I say cost-effective, I'm basically saying not aerospace military price point. Um Right. Easy easy for us to manufacture, fewer modifications, which makes it easier and quicker turn out It makes for a customer, and easier on their wallet. I mean, not you know, your big box store bike, but you know, Yes, if you're talking about the the the amount of uh um development that goes into it, and and our price point on on the RF20 is it's it's very economical in the in the composite manufacturing space. Right. Um is when I say economical. Um you know, other thing too that we can do is we can achieve really really high pressures, we can get really accurate layup schedules with um uh part that performs really well and is really lightweight. Now, where the trade-off is is on the ability to modify parts um to a really high degree. So, like being able to go back in and saying, okay, I want this down tube, you know, 1.5 cm longer, I want it a little narrower here, I want um I a maybe a headset race bearing changed, things like that on the way we manufacture the RF20 is is actually quite difficult. Um it drastically changes our layup system, it changes our internal tooling, it changes our mold tooling, it it's not cost-effective to do. So, that segues into our second type of manufacturing that we're also going forward from more of a customizable standpoint, which is the additive manufacturing. So, you're talking the 3D print core materials um that are bonded from a customizable parts, um more original concepts, um you know, this was our original concept a long time ago. This was And we had to ask ourselves, is this the future? Well, this is the future, but you have to have a little bit of old and a little bit of new to go forward. Well, and also the the goals are a little different. So, like on this second manufacturing platform that we're using now that we're going to be working with um for 2021, um you can design we can design the shapes much more organically and much uh much more custom. So, like we could do a one-off part for someone, but the problem is is that we well, problem is maybe the wrong word. The drawback of it is is that we can't achieve some of the same um weight to stiffness ratios that we can on the RF20. Um there there's a little bit of a weight penalty to go to that system um because we're not able to achieve, you know, 400, 600 PSI. So, we're talking, you know, much more conventional aero, you know, composite space of you know, we're looking at 30 PSI, 50 PSI, 60 PSI, depending on the parts um is what we're talking about compared to much higher, which reduces our tensile strength a little bit, it reduces some of our strength characteristics on the composites, but we're still getting a really strong part, you just there's a little bit of a weight penalty for it. Yeah. There's limitations on the compression and lightweighting, and even the scalability of making those types of products or more of one-off. Yes. Um We're definitely, we cannot produce um a very high volume of those parts, but we still can do it, and it's, you know, for Predator, that was kind of our original that was originally what we did is everything was just one-off custom. Um and this is to stick to those roots. Uh we wanted to make sure that we offer something down that line, and we kind of after years of R&D and research, we we figured out how to kind of thread that needle. Um and so, we're both offering it um in a more traditional manufacturing methodology in in the sense of like the the RF20, where you're getting the the highest strength-to-weight ratios you can get. Um and then, you know, going to an additive design, we're using additive manufacturing, so 3D printing um for molds and cores, um and using that in conjunction with um um pre-pregs, so that we can actually achieve super strong, really customized parts um with the small weight penalty. So, the evolution of these two first two sim systems that you just discussed created our third sta our third style, our third system of manufacturing, which is direct 3D printing of products. Yeah. Um it's not essentially products that are necessarily composite based here, um but they utilize the same workflow methods. And it's scalable. Yeah, it's it's much more scalable, and also it's well, I mean, so we've been using 3D print um here for six, seven years. Um yeah. Trying to think of all the 3D printers we screamed at and threw in the trash. Uh yeah, there's a couple of one in the trash. Uh there's a couple there's a handful we built our own, and programmed our own stuff, but um we've been using 3D print here for a very long time to build um tooling, fixtures, jigs, um alignment tools, I mean, all kinds of stuff. Um and it's always been a very very useful tool for manufacturing. Um and during this last this year, uh especially with COVID, it's kind of become a a problem on getting parts. Um a lot of parts are made in overseas. No. All right. Not the hard parts. Yes. Components that we usually would order bulk over from overseas that are usually and typically injection molded parts Yeah. And cheap and those products just aren't here in the States any longer. It's everything is back ordered. No one is has these products available. So this was an opportunity. We were like, "Ding. Hey, you know what? Even though it might be a little not super costlier, but it's not the parts from overseas." Right. We can also make them customizable, print them here in the US, and have such a quick turnaround for parts that are necessary that consumers want now. Yeah. I mean, we had the problems. Like we had the problem on our on our manufacturing side. Like some of the tools that we use, um I mean, like the parts that go within the tools are these small injection molded parts and some like holding the I hold down systems we use for our CNC machines are injection molded and come from overseas and you know, you didn't really I mean, we didn't make the connection all the time. Like all these little assemblies are made, you know, by all these other companies. It's it never really kind of clicked. So, um when we decided to bring some more printing in house so we could substitute that out, um we started realizing quickly, especially with our RF20 scaling it, that even in the bike industry, a ton of these parts were made overseas. And so we decided that we were going to um make the push and go into direct additive manufacturing for some of our smaller parts. A lot of new parts that we're coming out with. Yeah, we're working a lot on these small parts and they should be really pretty quickly here in January of 2021. We'll be sharing a lot more news on that soon. We're just actively working on it right now. Yeah. So, we're going to yeah. And so, you know, like um yeah. So, what Courtney said is is 100% we're going to be we're be releasing them in the very near future. A handful of parts I've been working on. And it's going to kind of round out our our line for next year. And we're really excited because we're actually going to be bringing to market products in each of our three manufacturing platforms. So, it's going to be pretty exciting for us. Yeah. Let's hope we get that push back done too. Yes. So, let's see. What to look forward to on the future podcast. Well, I'm just going to repeat myself from last week since we completely skipped over it. We we're going to go back to our discussion about simulation and design and talking about CFD, computational fluid dynamics. So, wind tunnel stress tests, etc. Mhm. And how our RF20 road frame goes through wind tunnels and how awesome it is and how fast it is. Yeah. And also, I mean, the the concept of how we use simulation um for analyzing our our bike early on. So, before we even have prototypes made and we're using simulation at conception. So, you know, we're coming up with the concept and simulating it right then. And it makes a huge difference in our workflows and kind of tandem is off of how we're able to do scale on our direct additive manufacturing. That's a huge part of it. So. So, we look forward to that next week. Yeah. And we thank you for choosing to take some time with us. And we look forward to future breakaways. I'll try my hardest to put any mentions in our news section on predatorcycling.com. Also, look for us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or right here in person in Tennessee. All right, let's get back to work. So, we ask our listeners to please share, like, and subscribe. We're available on all major streaming platforms. Thanks for listening. Have a good one and find some time to break away.