Dear fellow villagers, the Winter Olympics schedule has ended, I don't know if you are still immersed in the world of women's figure skating and can't extricate yourself? I don't know if everyone has grabbed the beloved ice pier? I, who loves to think blindly, have questioned, why was it "difficult to find a pier" before?
● The ice pier is not a panda wearing the king's new clothes, and it is its killer skill, but in the process of making toys, this gel coat is a mountain of gold that must be crossed;
● Reducing the number of parts has always been a way to improve efficiency in automobile manufacturing, and in recent years, car companies led by Tesla have been actively promoting the reduction of the number of body stamping parts. The reason is nothing more than to increase production and reduce costs;
● Although the integration is good, the cost of maintenance can not be good;
After flipping through the news on the Internet, I quickly found clues, in addition to being really loved by everyone and the reason for the speculation of scalpers, the main reason for the "difficult to find" is the manufacturing link, to be precise, it is stuck on the "rubber coat".
As we all know, the body of the ice pier is an ordinary panda, and the special feature is this rubber-coated armor, which is now stuck in the production. The production video was recently published on the Internet, and the manufacture of this gel coat is divided into at least 5 steps. It includes putting the material silicone on the mold, putting it into the stamping machine to shape, completing the demolding, and putting on a multicolored ice ribbon.
Such a large size leads to a mold can only produce two shells at a time, two sets of molds can only produce a maximum of 800 sets of gel coats a day, and now the Dongguan Zhongsheng Silicone Company, which is now responsible for production, has received 400,000 sets of orders a day on February 9, so the difficulty of grabbing this panda wearing rubber jackets is definitely higher than buying an iPhone in those years and buying PS5 in these two years.
So, clever, have you already thought of a plan to turn the gel coat into an all-in-one? Smart indeed! In fact, it is not just the construction of ice piers, from the assembly model we love to play, to the manufacture of automobiles, and the reduction of parts can improve production efficiency.
As we all know, whether it is a fuel car or an electric car, we love the shell outside the car - the body is not achieved overnight, it is gradually put together by welding or riveting steel or aluminum stamping parts, this process can be seen as a complex version of the manufacture of ice pier rubber coating, but the number of parts that need to be spelled on the car is more.
Auto manufacturers have long thought so, and this is what they have done. On this list of manufacturers that reduce body parts, we can see the shadows of overseas car companies such as Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volvo, as well as the names of emerging Car companies in China, such as Weilai and Xiaopeng. Americans call it one-piece die casting.
And because there is no solder joint, bolt or riveting in the one-piece structure, and there is no stamping plate with lower thickness, the abnormal sound is also well controlled, I am afraid that this is also an improvement that Tesla owners can really experience and are happy to see.
By drastically reducing production time, thereby reducing the price of products, consumers can also feel the dividends of technological progress. If you don't look at the date, is there a sense of immediacy in the early 2000s that Ford used the assembly line method to build the Model T and change the way humans travel?
So the question is, the one-piece die casting has so many advantages, exaggerated even makes people feel that there is a potential to change the times, why not see most car companies flock to it?
● Question 1: Equipment input cost
On the surface, integrated die casting reduces the mold required for stamping and does not require the purchase of welding robots required for the subsequent welding process, but at the same time new problems arise, in other words, the already reduced cost needs to be invested in other areas.
Let's also take the aforementioned popsicle as an example, it may be easy to make a simple shape, but if you want to show off your skills, make a popsicle with more layered shapes, curved surfaces and even excessively natural edges and corners, and a strong sense of design, then not only do you need to make the mold more delicate, and after doing it, you can't help but carefully observe the front and back left and right.
Put on the auto parts, the more complex the parts, the more drastic the change in the profile and cross-section, the higher the requirements for structural parameters, on the other hand, in order to ensure the strength, the larger the size, the thicker the material will increase, which further leads to the stricter the control of process parameters. In the later quality inspection link, the ordinary three-coordinate instrument that costs millions of dollars is naturally unable to see the internal problems of the casting, and the new equipment that needs to be introduced is currently lacking in the entire industry, and the price can be imagined.
● Problem 2: Maintenance costs have increased significantly
Words written at the end:
Including this one-piece die casting, the emergence of new technologies will strongly stimulate the use of existing technologies, thus affecting the entire related industry. The advantages of drastically reducing the time required for the process and the number of parts are strongly demanded by Americans, and the high investment that comes with it does not seem to be a disadvantage for Tesla, which is in the rising period. Of course, the development that is suitable for it is not suitable for all car companies, and how to optimize the follow-up process based on its own product line is the focus. (Text/Figure Autohome Tang Dynasty)