3D Printing a Lamborghini Aventador!

you wouldn't download a car [Laughter] [Music] this is a 3D printed Lamborghini Aventador SV and this is Sterling hey man hey how's it going dude good to see you thanks for having us out this is an incredible project you and your son started this like how long ago about five years ago now five years ago five years ago there was nothing here absolutely nothing no frame no engine nothing it just blows my mind that at what I'm looking at is mostly 3D printed that's exactly right tell me about the process you went through in beginning to even consider how you and your son were going to 3D print a car well so we started by going to YouTube University and your channel and uh trying to learn about 3D printing and what we needed to do to even start this project well years ago I remember I I did a lot of really large 3D prints right now we didn't have a big 3D printer so we bought one off of Amazon which was a little small cr-10s that's where we started and we started printing in pla we got the model from a little toy that we used some calipers to put it into SolidWorks So Not only was this 3D printed by by you and your son and a single 3D printer single 3D printer that's correct but you created the model as well yes that is correct from a 110 scale model exactly and we did a little bit of you know we widened the the car up so it's a wide body okay eight inches in the rear four inches in the front because we like that look kind of low and wide and it does right but we didn't want to just use 3D prints because we live in Colorado and it gets hot here and does it yeah well in the summertime it certainly does and uh the glass temperature of pla is not that great oh right yeah so having it exposed in the sun is not good and plus it's not very structurally sound and the body is printed using the same material that I make little articulated dragons out of that is exactly right with a Twist it is laminated actually encapsulated in carbon fiber how do you do that so we would make small pieces about a foot cubed you know depending upon the shape of the piece and then uh we take all of the pieces little sections of a panel and then we use pmmma epoxy to butt join all of those together into a single panel it's much larger than a cr-10s so you have to do it in pieces right and you use PMA to to kind of chemically weld it together correct is it just sanding from there no so we wanted to give the car and the body as strong as structures we could like you if you were doing say metal or fiberglass or something like that and you know it's going to be on the road out in the environment and so what we decided to do was encapsulate all of the 3D prints in carbon fiber they're basically the top is three layers of carbon fiber the bottom is three layers of carbon fiber just a fabric that we use thanks to the Aerospace industry then we put it into a vacuum bag and use atmospheric pressure to crush it down and then we feed in epoxy into the other end and then let it cure and then we have a part now wait you mentioned the glass transition temperature of pla right now it's not compatible with the Colorado summer if you have those three layers on either side making that sandwich does that improve the performance of the pla yes it does because that actually now gives you your strength and your structure and the pla has an added benefit of being sound deadening material inside of the panel because a lot I didn't even think about that yeah a lot of car guys who do carbon fiber panels will have to do something about the fact that the carbon fiber sounds tinny and you can yes that sounds solid and that's specifically because of that sandwich PLA and I wish I had um actually come up with that idea instead of going oh well that's an added benefit a PLA and the cr-10s is what began the journey on this car that's right and you and your son spent how long printing we had our cr-10s going for about a year and a quarter almost non-stop that's because you took essentially a uh in software we have an MVP right minimum viable product and the cr-10 is almost considered like a minimum viable product it's the minimum pieces to make a large format machine it's a consumer machine and yet you had it going at an industrial pace for a year and a quarter yeah and it survived it did did it last the the time it needed to to print for the body and then it died so what I'm looking at essentially is how much of this was cr-10 and how much of this is new printer the entire body so body panels door panels the rear engine cover the front fenders the hood all of that was done with the cr-10s you said the cr-10s died it did die did you replace it with something so I got Equity x max okay all right and um they actually sent it to me because they saw it on the Lamborghini commercial that we did so hopefully you can link that in your description so people can watch that sure I'll put a link down there and we'll find that Lamborghini commercial and we'll put a link down there too yeah yeah how many people can say that they're a part of a Lamborghini I know right so with so with that machine though you're not just printing pla if I remember you told me no I switched over to ASA and the reason is is that we now are doing like interior parts and exterior parts and uh it has a higher glass temperature and so I found that it actually can survive in the Colorado sun when it's exposed and ASA is UV stable and it won't be have the layers of carbon fiber you won't have that is because it's an interior part exactly [Music] mature the car we thought we'd start at the front and one of the things I want to make sure we get it to the audience I want to make sure it's clear this is 3D printed in that the body the internal panels stuff like that but underneath this is a custom fabricated frame correct correct well at the front of the car one of the things I want to bring attention to are these freaking awesome headlights right tell me about these so these are actually from a real Aventador and normally they go for about five thousand dollars a piece a piece a piece I couldn't afford them but Lamborghini was very nice they loved the project so much that they actually donated these to the project they look great they look they look amazing I love those uh the front of the car gray primer great yeah primer not mistaken so this looks like a lot more sanding has been done that is correct like a lot more yeah and that's what we're in the process that's why you see kind of the patchwork on the car is um we're basically trying to get all the panels you know nice and aligned and so they open and close and they have nice shot lines on them as we call them in the in the car world so when we painted it looks like a nice paint job what color are you gonna go I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it white black and red it's gonna be so nice yeah so then uh before we leave the front of the car there's one question I had to ask is that the windshield this looks like what a Lamborghini windshield might look like did you acquire that from those are about four thousand dollars okay so um this is actually a windshield from a Pacifica minivan my Pacifica it's the only thing it's put together as I am and I had um a great uh company called chip Pros that came out and they actually cut the windshield for me we're at the side of the door 4 and Sterling says I want to show you something I do okay I want to see this what's the iconic thing of a Lamborghini oh the doors they go well this that is so cool Sterling this is so cool this is one of the hardest parts of the car mechanically mechanically ah okay because this is 3D printed yep and the inside of the door has it's metal for safety and there's uh the leather work I remember you told me you're going to be redoing that that's right so 3D printing isn't the tough part no the hard part is not only does this door come up it comes out yeah oh oh so you see how it's coming out at about a 30 degree angle yeah yeah this is custom oh really right so a hinge is about a thousand dollars for a real one so we had to come up with a mechanism on our own that seems inexpensive by Lamborghini Stadium that's right so okay Lamborghini has the hinge the proper hinge a thousand dollars a piece right then but you designed your own did you get to glean any information from theirs or did you just have to problem solve I actually tried problem solving and failed miserably and then forward right because I failed forward into my friend in Texas who's doing an Aventador who has a lot more experience than me and so he said no you should do your door hinges this way and so he sent me a door hinge to try out and it works perfectly well that's amazing to hear well actually this is great too because you said your friend in Texas right Sterling isn't the only one with a 3D printed Aventador there's others yeah there's like five of us right now doing these five of them yeah so then the hinges from your friend in Texas are in this one correct and they were great he contributed a hinge to you and your build right what did you contribute to anything of his so what I did was I actually found a dash for a dash Hood that's going over the instrument cluster and I was able to get that for him and send it to him so we do exchange parts and now he has a problem with headlights and tail lights so we're going to 3D print some forms that's really cool oh I love it's like a tight little tight knit little Community closing the door I know you had to open the doors closing the door as difficult as opening the door or can I do it you can do it just pull it towards you okay you'll push it towards the car oh oh I see yeah slots in yep boom yes this is the engine compartment this is the engine compartment this is called a Mid Engine a Mid Engine but it's at the back of the car it's not at the complete back of the car so like a Porsche 911 has a rear engine this is a Mid Engine where the engine is in the middle of the car and the transmission is behind it first of all though are there any 3D prints within the engine compartment like like that is this is no this is this is something I got off of eBay which is actually what goes in an Aventador okay but the the engine cover the engine cover is 3D 3D printed oscillating carbon fiber okay so I see a lot like a welded metal yep and obviously the engine stuff and it makes sense to not have a bunch of 3D prints close to the thing that gets really warm so tell me about that engine Sterling so you'll see that you're asked about 3D prints in the engine I did I did you see the intake uh come up there oh that's cool so that's actually printed out of um nylon carbon fiber oh okay it's cool to see a 3D print in the engine nylon with some carbon fiber it makes a lot of sense that's not a part that's going to get hot it won't get up to the glass temperature right exactly but the engine that's in front of it this this big piece right here what is it so what you're looking at the Big Shiny thing right there that is a uh the intake for a V8 okay so this is what's known as an LS1 LS1 right it's a GM uh V8 uh aluminum block engine and normally goes into a Corvette ah and this one is actually out of a 2005 Corvette okay that I got from a junkyard oh wow you were resourceful for this so we we bought the engine we had it uh delivered here and then we rebuilt it and what's your transmission transmission is actually from a uh Porsche 911. yeah and it's well it's not it's not actually a transmission it's a trans axle oh so it's a transmission it's it no it's still straight but it's a it's a transmission that actually has a differential in it so it's all one package okay and the reason for that is is because you can see where the wheels are right right they're at the front of the transmission yeah and that's actually where the differential is and also there's a thing called an LS swap that people sometimes do with their 911 Porsches there's a company that actually makes a mating kit for these two parts to go together and again that was the community that helped us with that because I didn't know what I was going to do and then I reached out to our community and one of the guys said oh yeah you just go to Kennedy Engineering and get the interface kit and it's all good so it's fantastic I love that you said kit cars because when I was younger I remember trying to look for an inexpensive Fiero to put a new body on top of it yes right and that was my in my head as a kid that was my version of a kit car and and they still do that oh sure they still do that just like a body swap right but you it's not you don't have a Fiero like frame under here this is this is a customer this is all custom correct yeah so the main part where the occupants sit is made out of two by four uh 120 wall Steel so it's pretty beefy that sounds beefy and it's heavy I would imagine it is heavy but it's not as heavy as you would think so what's the real Aventador SV compared to this Weight Wise just under 4 000 pounds okay and this is and this is around 2 700 pounds really yeah you want to sit in and hear how it sounds yes oh my gosh yes yes I really want to do this Sterling Sterling I'm in an Aventador I'm in an Aventador and it's cool because it's yours it is mine and I still see 3D printed Parts like this is 3D printed up here this is 3D printed here there's there's so much it looks like a standard Dash it is it's standard Dash and and these uh the door inside door cards yeah door cards are standard um steering wheel is that no that's not 3D printed no this is actually a real Lamborghini steering wheel from an Aventador so when we did the commercial with Lamborghini their director of marketing came over and at the time uh you know Audi is part of the VW group which uh right you know basically so they're all one big happy family and so there's a lot of Audi parts in a Lamborghini and one of those parts is the steering column and so if you have an Audi steering wheel it goes onto the Audi steering column that's in an actual Lamborghini so I had a nice beautiful Audi steering wheel and the director of marketing looked in the car and he saw the Audi steering wheel and he said yeah that's not going to work and so he says uh I'm gonna I'm gonna bring you one next time I'm in in the U.S and so about two weeks later he showed up took us all to dinner and he had a little gift for me and it's going to be the only badge in the car so out of respect for Lamborghini I'm not going to badge the car a Lamborghini okay but since this was donated by them this will be the only badge on the car really and it shows that Lamborghini I'm part of this they're not uh are how can we help that's right the guys who are actually building the the these Lamborghinis they actually uh were talking about this project and so then the higher ups heard about it and that's when they decided they were going to contact me and and we were going to do a project together that's that's such a cool story that the people who make these the real Aventadors loved your project and circulated it enough to get the top people the c-suite kind of interested in it dude this has been a treat I feel 3D printed things but my eyes show me of an Aventador I'm glad you're still a trip man yeah I know you've got some work to do on this car you want to get it finished and stuff so what are next steps so the next steps is as we talked about the front end the gray part which is the primer that's what I'm doing is I'm going through the panels one at a time and block sanding them getting them ready for paint once we get that done we can work on some more of the mechanics and electrical parts of the car that still need to be finished and then the interior and then we're going to show it at a car show in August a car show in August car show in August okay where is that car show going to be that car show is going to be at Bandimere Speedway which is down south near Denver August 13th you can see what I just experienced but in a finished State exactly hopefully well this has been an incredible journey and if you made it this far on your journey in this episode you're awesome don't forget to hug each other more fight for a cause you believe in build all the Lamborghinis and as always high five nailed it start it let's do it [Music] yeah yeah yeah [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: 3D Printing Nerd

Views: 661,679

Keywords: 3d printing nerd, joel telling, joeltelling, 3d printing, 3dpn, 3d printing a car, lamborghini aventador, 3d printing lamborghini, sterling backus, laser sterling, lamborghini christmas commercial

Id: NvIFUINUlMU

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Fri May 05 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/theanswriz42]

It's pretty awesome that Lamborghini is helping them out with the project.

[u/SirAri]

Project=cool video=cringe

[u/Deep-Main4522]

you wouldn't download a car