How much would you say this entire process costs- for example, If I have a CNC and the Oven - How much would the cnc board cost? How much would the CNC sealer cost? How much would the prepreg mold cost? How much would the bags cost? so on... Even a rough estimate would help. Is there a minimum size required per roll order? - Thanks.
Excellent videos. I have one question you might be able to answer. I'm using currently XC110 3k and 6k prepregs. When I intend to use them, I defrost them for four hours usually. But the problem I'm facing is that prepregs become very hard, unlike the ones in your videos. What could be the reason if I may ask? Thank you. FYI, I have not exceeded the recommended out time.
Adding to what tuiapele was saying, keeping it in a freezer prevents moisture from getting into the resin matrix before use. Moisture is bad because it could introduce voids while curing.
It blows me away how amazing your products come out! I dont believe that I have the talent nor patience for this, but would love some CF parts on my car or motorcycle.
Great video, as usual. Tip for future videos, though; please, if you're going to hold the part/focus object, please hold it still or better yet just set it on the table so the camera can see it easily.
Pretty good tutorial I have to say. It’s not structural so both plies at 0 and the second ply also cut into the corner is no big deal although I’ve never heard of a cure being done without breather over the whole job. Even just an oven cure should still have light breather over it.
It's definitely better to not put the breather over the laminate surface when using the XC110 out-of-autoclave. It is convention for autoclave prepregs and an autoclave-cure to put breather over the whole laminate surface but we find the results are improved by not using breather over the surface under these conditions. Also, it's certainly not unheard of to use breather more sparingly even for autoclave cure conditions and actually quite important to avoid breather in particularly tight geometries.
Easy Composites Ltd yeah I mean I've never used that material so i can't speak from experience, but all clave cures should still be allowed to have the air channel that breather gives. Light can work it's way round most corners, especially if you dib the bag, and of course you can still tailor the breather into the corners if you're using heavy; kind of the same way you would the laminate on a visual ply.
Could you guys do a video on the different surface finishes different methods produce? I'd love to see how I can get a perfect, glass smooth glossy finish!
You can get a very good finish straight from the mould (as you see in this video). Achieving a 100% flat surface finish from the mould is not actually possible (using the out-of-autoclave method or an autoclave cure system) because the carbon fibre will always print through slightly on the surface. Almost always, this amount of print through would be acceptable but if it isn't, the only way to achieve a perfect flat gloss is to clear coat, then flat and polish the part after it's been made.
Could you show how make it when the object, like a bumper, have 2 different faces ( An external clean and other with brackets in the interior. ) ? Really thanks for everything. Very helpfull. Best, P R E L !
I've got a few questions, first doesn't a your standard twill weave carbon fiber cloth lay down extraordinarily well as in very flat and without creases into even the most intricate of molds, one of the reasons it's a beloved material for parts prototyping, what I'm asking is this stuff is not for making parts that require such precision then? in which case you'd go with a standard two part epoxy resin? I know it's strength and light weight are why it's used in motorcycling but they also use it for exhausts, because the stuff basically won't be effected at those temperatures but you were worried about excessive heat from a heat gun, does this stuff have different heat properties? So other than less mess and added material, actual time it would take and the skill needed; if you can do work with carbon fiber cloth you can do pre peg just as easily right and? What about costs over time and vise versa? plus repeatability, if you were making similar parts over and over you'd be doing it with cloth and resin correct, to yeild the most consistent results over and over, while if you were just doing a certin project once every couple years then the convenience will be worth using pre peg? what about the same parts cloth and pre peg does one out preform the other or are they apples and oranges? sorry for so many questions but this is my first time seeing pre peg, what cool stuff. made me a subscriber, thanks
I've made an absolutely perfect mould using Airtech LTC3 tooling prepreg and a PU master, sealed with a very thin coat of epoxy and about 8 coats of MPP712EZ sealer from Chemtrend. I wonder why LTC3 worked so well and some other tooling systems fail with PU masters...
Hi! Excellent video! Could I use a mid layer of foam to increase the overall strength of the final piece, or it doesn't make sense with those pre peg sheets? Thanks
Creating a cored panel with pre-preg materials is commonly done to improve strength and stiffness so it is possible to do so. You need the right core material to withstand the cure temperatures and depending on the resin uptake of the core, you may need to use a film adhesive to add resin adhesive to bond them together properly.
Imagine you've laminated and vacuum bagged, how long can you keep them like that before you cure in the oven? I was thinking of laminating several parts over a day or two in the evenings after work, say Thurs-Fri, then run the oven early Saturday morning whilst at I'm home all day.
Not a problem at all. The outlife of the pre-preg is fine in most cases and a few days under vacuum at room temperature may very slightly help with consolidation on some difficult parts - in the same way debulking helps.
Amazing video, thanks a lot for sharing this knowledge How does prepreg stick to aluminum parts: Would embedded the aluminum parts in your prepreg layers, or would you glue the aluminum parts once the prepreg is cured and sanded. I'm making about mainly tube fitting (aluminum tube to carbon tube (partially wrapping the alu tube) transition) Great job Cheers
Prepreg can be cured directly to aluminium using the resin to bond however, for this type of application with tubes, it would probably be better to cure the carbon separately and bond in place as a secondary operation. The difference in thermal expansion of the aluminum vs carbon can cause issues as the 2 materials expand and contract at different rates during the curing phase.
I have two questions Can the carbon look nice finished when the mold side isn't the part we want to look at? How are we going to achieve nice quality finish in this situation? Second question is when do we need to use extra epoxy on the fibers? Also the weight of the new carbon part you made vs the old engine cover. Thanks!
In this tutorial the mold is female. You can always use a male instead of a female mold. The process isn't much different from that with a male mold. The 2 molds at 8:59 are male.
Awesome video, thank you for sharing! Quick question. If I was to use a powder coating oven, how would you go about working the vacuum pump in? Thanks!!
A form of bulkhead fitting (Pneumatic/airline suppliers) that allows attachment of the pump the the fitting and then internally from the fitting to the part.
If we have two CF finishes parts and want to join them ... can we put them back into the oven ? errr.... I have to make a Component which has two parts ... that need to be joined together in a super strong bond. They cannot be made in one go hence two parts and then join ... So after the two are made and cured in the oven ...can we join them together by putting them together back in the oven. (with off course CF applied) (I am sure i have not explained that well)
That method generally is not necessary. Modern structural adhesives would be the easiest way to bond as long as you create a reasonable overlap/bonding joint.
@@easycompositestv so I could in theory if I wanted a V pattern on one sheet, Id just have to lay the V pattern for the surface layer, then over lap the underlying layers???? trying to figure out how to make a v Pattern carbon part with out pre preg
@@spencerhansen5804 Hi Spencer, yes, that's correct lay the first ply with the herringbone pattern then all the following plies can be laminated as normal.
Really solid presentation. two questions here: 1. does industry also use the draping and prepreg procedures shown in this presentations? Since it seems to involve a lot of manual adjustment, large deviation may occur in large production. 2. in your channel, carbon fiber composite is mostly manufactured for laminate which has excellent lateral mechanical property but weak along out of plane direction. do you guys also make bulk composite parts which have fiber direction not only in plane but also in out of plane direction? Thank you.
Higher volume parts may need slightly different process and tools, however there are plenty of business using these techniques and materials to make parts in smaller and medium volumes. You can make parts stronger in those direction by rotating the plies of the material in a lay up. For many non-structural parts, this is not necessary though.
congratulations for your videos.. they are always very useful. one question, is it necessary to keep the vacuum pump on during the entire curing phase in the oven or is it enough that there is a perfect vacuum in the bag?
You would need an inner mould or matched tooling. You can make it in two parts and bond together, or use carefully designed matched tooling to make one piece.
In theory, yes, it should be possible - you would need to incorporate some of the fibres at +/-45 degrees as well as 0/90 to ensure you had uniform mechanical strength in each direction. As a starting point, I would recommend matching the thickness of the original part if made in metal - doing so will result in a lighter finished piece but with similar overall strength.
Could this be achieved using dry reinforcement and wet laminating for small production purposes to save on cost? What would the cons be exactly? Thank you!
I wonder how important the temperarture during the curing process of the carbon fibre really is, does it make´s the material really that much stronger ?
Yes Matt, in the case of curing a prepreg material like we used in this video it simply won't cure without elevated temperature. The precision on the terperature (in terms of ramps and dwells) is more important for out of autoclave prepregs (like our XC110) but you will always find that prepregs have a cure cycle. It's often not a matter of the exact cure cycle making the cured laminate stronger but rather controlling the temperature in order to prevent an exotherm or to ensure proper resin flow.
Laser cutting is generally not suited to composite cutting - you wouldn't want to use it pre-curing anyway but post curing, the burn temperature of the carbon is too high for the resin so you end up destroying the resin locally to the cut. It is best cut by mechanical means (CNC Router or Waterjet) or in its uncured form with a rotary/ blade cutter
How much suction is needed when vacuum bagging the wrapped part? Would attaching the suction hose to a common heavy duty shop-vac be sufficient or does it require much greater amounts of suction to pull out any air bubbles?
Just quick question, does it make difference if I use this oven and not autoclave? I find very hard to find any autoclave to buy out of EU. I would invest in one of the ovens you are selling, but I need to know if its sufficient to me. (Im start up company)
It really depends on the materials that you are wanting to process. Our XC110 material for example, is an out of autoclave pre preg which can be processed in an oven at vacuum pressure.
Why use the tape template to cut the signboard template, then the signboard template to cut the prepreg? Why not tape template direct to the prepreg? Reuse?
Can I put forward a suggestion for a tutorial video. Visiting the Autosport show every year the carbon WRC spoilers never fail to amaze me up close. All multi element with smooth faces on all sides.
Dear Sir, If I want to make a sphere of FRP of having the dia around 1000mm then how it is possible have the same in FRP in outer side as finished....!
Carbon fibre itself is charcoal in colour. You can have hybrid fabrics made with a half carbon, half dyed polyester mix but that is clearly a half black, half red look. To get an even red colour like on the Chiron, the easiest method is to spray the car with a tinted lacquer. Various paint companies offer tinted lacquers. With multiple layers and a strong tint, you could get the effect they have on the Chiron.
buongiorno devo acquistare il forno per la lavorazione del prepeg , volevo sapere se senza autoclave e utilizzando stampi in alluminio si possono ottenere risultati di finitura come nel video ? oppure bisogna levigare e trasparentare grazie Francesco
Sì, se utilizzi il giusto forno, i giusti preimpregnati e i giusti consumabili per il confezionamento sottovuoto, è assolutamente possibile ottenere i risultati che ci vedi ottenere in questo video senza la necessità di un'autoclave. In questo video utilizziamo solo un forno, nessuna autoclave, e i risultati che otteniamo sono reali: non ci sono 'inganni'. Tuttavia, hai bisogno di abilità ed esperienza ed è comunque possibile ottenere risultati tutt'altro che perfetti anche se hai tutte le attrezzature e gli strumenti giusti se non sai cosa stai facendo. Quando si vogliono ottenere risultati davvero perfetti senza autoclave, le cose importanti sono il preimpregnato (è necessario utilizzare il sistema XC110), il livello di vuoto deve essere il più alto possibile (>99/9%) e il forno deve avere davvero controllo accurato della rampa e dell'ammollo. Se hai queste cose, puoi ottenere risultati perfetti.
The Tg of the resin system used in the XC110 prepreg is 120°C therefore it should not be used for applications where it will be exposed to service temperatures of around 115°C. The service temperature around the intake and valve covers will depend on a number of factors so you're best checking your configuration using an infrared thermometer in order to know what temperature you have in these areas.
@13.35, I disagree. Even on visual parts, wherever it is practical to do so, I've always completely covered the component in air bleed for a cure because it is good practice to minimise the risk factor of air becoming trapped within the bag face.
No, that's true, there a great deal. There is more 'slack' on the full rolls, which I guess are the ones that are likely to be in and out of the freezer more times, but on the shorter rolls it's really a matter of taping them back up if you need to re-freeze them. Some 2" wide clear tape will do the trick fine.
Just the first layer on this part; as a thin laminate there's generally no need to run a second debulk. It is worth considering if building up more layers than here though to ensure good consolidation.
Nice video, but what do you do if you have some threded screws on the inside of the part ? How do you make a screw thred inside the part, as you generally are making the carbon fiber part on one face of the main part ? Thank you.
Generally screw threaded fixings like that are created after the main part. As the typical carbon moulding processes are "single sided" it can be hard to create fixings on the reverse. Different ways can be done, including bonding in aftermarket threaded studs or fixings, cutting up the original part to salvage fixings or fabricating or casting them in resin then bonding into place.
Can i make a fixed wing drone like a MQ9 Reaper model or a Boeing 747 model fuselage and wings using carbon fiber only? Or do i have to mix it with Balsa wood which has been traditionally used in model aeroplanes?
Yes you can use carbon for these parts either on its own or in combination with a core material to add stiffness. Be aware that if you have internal areas, carbon will reduce signal strength.
Hello, I love your videos, thanks for everything, there are so well explained ! I'm looking for a video about latex bladders, is that in your plans ? And do you think that a latex bladder part could be stronger than one using a vacuum bag, a vacuum bag put on the piece 1 atmospheric pressure, is not it ? And a latex bladder could be pump up to few atmospheric pressure ? ????
Hi Jean-pierre, we might well do a video in the future about positive pressure bladders. At the moment, I don't think it's imminent because we have lots of other things to cover too and - to be honest - moulds that can take high pressures come with several risks which make them less suitable for home projects but it's still something we could cover in the future. To answer your question, there could be advantages to higher pressure (more consolidation) over just the one bar of pressure available in a vacuum only setup, although if done correctly, the difference would be small.
There is not really a maximum number of layers that can be cured in an oven, the main consideration for really thick laminates would be exotherm (where the resin in the thick laminate over heats during cure). To avoid exotherm you can cure at the lower temperature end and also reduce ramp rates however this would only be necessary on laminates in excess of around 5mm.
Easy Composites Ltd Thank you so much Sir for your valuable guidance. We are actually planning to build a plate of 21 layers, and manufacturer has given us the temp. as 120 deg. For 2 hrs Celsius to cure our product for that particular prepeg, so after your your reply we are planning to keep the same at 80deg. Celcius for 3hrs 30mins. Will the temperature and time duration be sufficient to aquire the expected strength from that plate.
21 layers? Shouldn't you be considering another solution, using the shape instead of the thickness to provide strength? Think of an I-beam vs a solid beam, the I beam only needs to be ~10% larger, and weighs 70% less to have the same strength.
Danner rrr maybe combining structural design changes with maybe a change to carbon Kevlar or fiberglass honeycomb laminate isn't difficult to pull off either. 21 layers? How thick is that armorcore drywall?
It really depends on the application and which process is more appropriate. The long fibers (woven or UD) found in pre-pregs are more suited for thinner panels where the tensile properties of the carbon come into play. Forged carbon, on the other hand, is better suited for compression molding, where a much thicker cross-section is required. The short, randomly oriented fibers can be manipulated into a shape that would be very difficult to laminate using traditional methods.
Yes, lots of them. Generally they use a 'drag knife' on a CNC plotter. This process is often known as kitting, especially when the CNC is used to cut lots of copies of each piece.
Yes, you can do that. The out-life of the material is around 6 weeks at room temperature but if you think you might not use the material in that time then you can freeze it for at least 12 months, quite possibly a lot longer.
It's not dissimilar from a vacuum pump that you might use to charge an air conditioning system. The pump we used was the DVP EC.4; you can find these high quality DVP pumps on our website here: www.easycomposites.co.uk/#!/vacuum-equipment-and-supplies/vacuum-pumps-and-equipment/composites-vacuum-pump.html
That is 'breather cloth'; you can find it here on our website: www.easycomposites.co.uk/#!/vacuum-equipment-and-supplies/vacuum-bagging-consumables/breather-fabric.html
Yes, that might be an interesting video. There are a lot of ways to do it but most of them are quite simple. I would suggest brush applying or spraying the MDF with our Pattern Coat Primer product, then flat it back and repeat the process. A couple of applications and the correct flatting and polishing (abrasive paper followed by polishing compound) will give you a perfect finish on MDF pretty quickly.
In pre-preg format no. However we do have a small selection of standard cloths in a 50/50 hybrid color/carbon cloth which you can see here: www.easycomposites.co.uk/#!/fabric-and-reinforcement/carbon-fibre-reinforcement/hybrid-and-decorative-carbon-fabrics
Why are you making a carbon fiber mould from a plastic mould and then making the production parts from the carbon fiber part instead of continuing to use the plastic mould over and over?
In this instance, the Epoxy Tooling Board used for the pattern could indeed be used as a mould but only for short production runs as with heat cycling, it would eventually degrade and you may lose accuracy after a number of uses. If a larger production run of items is required; the PrePreg will last significantly longer and maintain accuracy throughout its life cycle.
I tried using pre-preg, very exciting, however, incredibly wasteful I lost more material because of storage complications than anything, Ultimately the traditional wet laminating epoxy method is cheaper, more moldable and doesn't require special storage considerations. Not worth the additional costs unless you are in some manufacturing situation where you are able to use the material quickly.
