[Closed] Robot Bike Co - r160

No bottle cage mounts, therefore not enduro enough.

🙂

I think it's a thing of beauty and I look forward to the prices coming down, eventually.

Fascinating engineering. It's great people are doing stuff like this.

In a world where I had the money I'd buy one, I'd love just looking at it.

It is pretty porny, though.
[img] [/img]

Reminds me of some of the bonkers earlier MTB experiments such as;

[img] http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=137203 [/img]
Whatever happened to beryllium, eh?

I was at the launch accidentally, visiting the Renishaw innovation centre as a work thing. It's interesting engineering, some of the other laser sintered examples they've got are very impressive.

[img] https://goo.gl/QsZwGN [/img]

I like the double lap joints by creating a groove for the tubes to slot into.

The brake mounts look a bit flimsy next to the rest of the frame though.

It does make me think of scaffolding poles though.

So ugly only its mother could love it

if the future of bikes is creating ugly to suit the process I'm oooot

Story on front page says like nothing youv'e ever seen

http://bastion-cycles.com/ really because everyone seems to be doing it

oooh look 3d printed titanum lugs and tubes from down under http://bastion-cycles.com/process/

It is a bit

[img] [/img]

isn't it.

Oh a mountain bike for Bugatti Veyron owners! they will be pleased.

Am I the only who one thinks that those titanium lugs will be a right bugger to keep clean?

I like it a lot, great to see some different thinking, especially as it doesn't need stupid swoopy tubes.

If I win the lottery I'll consider it but being as all my bikes combined don't add up to the price of a single frame that's the only way it'll happen.

Good luck to them, there's lots of money out there, lets just hope it's looking for the ultimate mountainbike.

That's great, clever thinking! I'm curious to see how they generate suggested geometry based on height, arm span and leg length. Also trying to work out how this new DW6 suspension works - anyone know what's going on with the three pivots near the BB?

anyone know what's going on with the three pivots near the BB

Looks like the third is a stiffener come tie pin,I've seen separate materials done like this to save on build time cost and weight, some parts we used to bond magnesium in between plates to achieve the same

Right, that makes more sense! So there's a short link between seat stay and seat tube and a super short link between chainstay and seat tube. I wonder where the instant centre is projected?

I know the Split Pivot puts the instant centre with respect to rear axle at the chainstay-seat tube pivot but the instant centre with respect to rear axle is projected from the seatstay-seat tube pivot pair and rear axle-chainstay-seat tube pivot pair, so the anti-squat (pedalling) and anti-rise (braking) can be tuned independently.

theres two little linkages buried down there ,maybe they counterrotate

Its not stretching the technology much though is it.
Most people could glue some tubes together in their garage with bit of thought (I've tried it).

This is the closest I'm ever likely to come to industry insider knowledge, so listen up people! 😉

I spoke to someone close to Robot bike today - at my children's swimming lessons of all places.

He's not a biking person and was a bit surprised I'd heard about it only a day after launch. He said that the growth plans were for a 120mm (?) suspension frame and then a hardtail.

He said there had been some very close attention paid to pricing and that the USP was thought to be mass customisation (i.e. the geometry offer). It was felt that not many other manufacturers would be able to combine this offer with the materials.

theres two little linkages buried down there ,maybe they counterrotate

Looks like it. If he'd put a split pivot in there too he could have claimed to be using every suspension design going!

It's a DW link, so the bearings will need fully replacing every 3-4 weeks.

You can get a fully bespoke, hand made Nicolai with almost infinite customisation for almost half that price with the added bonus of massive durability and customisation.

Looks like something very exclusive from the 90s... MOAR titanium! MOAR carbon!

I like it, but couldn't give a monkeys for the 'custom fitted' nature of the frame. Maybe I'm just very average. All my frames (erm.. 11) fit me very differently, yet they are all great in their different ways.

Custom geometry with 3D printed lugs you say?

Ahem, this very idea might have been tossed around STW [url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/snaps-of-the-3d-printed-bike ]2 years ago[/url] When bitching about another Renishaw 3d printing bike based technical exercise...

So yeah, there are no original ideas anymore...

Thought one of the main benefits of carbon was the fancy forms and being able to lay material where it's needed to optimise strength to weight. Tubes and lugs all seems a bit old school.

Not sure they are professing to have come up with the individual processes, it more of a refined package. As cookeaa pointed out, there have been several similar stabs at bikes like this, and I'm guessing there will be more in the future.

I Love the concept and fact that it offers something a lot of riders are looking for at that end of the market i.e. customisation.

CaptainFlashheart
Whatever happened to beryllium, eh?

From Wikipedia:

American Bicycle Manufacturing of St. Cloud, Minnesota, briefly offered a frameset made of beryllium tubes (bonded to aluminum lugs). Given the toxic nature of the material and the pricing ($26,000 for frame and fork), they never caught on. Reports were that the ride was very harsh, but the frame was also very laterally flexible.[52]

Oof. Laterally compliant and vertically stiff! 😀

Utterly pointless outside of a uni students final year project.

It's like a mtb version of the Merlin Cielo which came out in 2009!

[img] [/img]

dragon - I'm sure Independent Fabrication were doing it long before then.
But it's a bit different (and not as pretty) to be doing it by machine to order.

Anyway - It's not for me, but I wish them luck.

it'd have to be quick to ride that, its a reet munter

I don't like to slag off something new and I do hope it does well, but they really should employ an industrial designer and graphic designer. With 3D printing you can have some lovely shapes but the lugs just look awful, especially the ST/TT lug. I think it is certainly the start of things to come.

With 3D printing you can have some lovely shapes

That is topology optimization not industrial design

I Love the concept and fact that it offers something a lot of riders are looking for at that end of the market i.e. customisation.

Not to disagree with myself but custom geometry in carbonfibre doesn't actually need fancy 3D printed lugs.

The likes of parlee, several smaller scale builders and lots of hobbyists have been doing it using the more "traditional" method of mitred tubes glued and filleted with epoxy, then joints wrapped over with pre-preg and compressed to form what is essentially a composite lug...

I Can't really see how a titanium lug is any "better" or cheaper, other than in man hours maybe?

It's a technical novelty, with the inherent bling factor that comes with using Titanium more than anything else...

Custom angles may not need 3D printing, but this is the method Robot have chosen to make their frames. i think there is more to what they are doing than bling and novelty.

http://pencerw.com/feed/2015/3/15/3d-printing-titanium-and-the-bin-of-broken-dreams

I borrowed the link from a well known framebuilding forum.

I like it, if the bits are replaceable and you could un bond the tubes from the lugs then you really could have a bike for life, even down to changing the angles and wheel size, top tube length, repair.. whatever...
New head tube sir! what size, angle, headset would you like? Let me print that for you..
Longer top and down tube, what length would you like?
29/650-fat++++ back end? Here you go..
New bottom bracket, what type?
I understand that these particular bikes probably don't offer most of that but as a construction model theres a lot of potential I reckon.

Not to disagree with myself but custom geometry in carbonfibre doesn't actually need fancy 3D printed lugs.

Yes, surely you could get pretty close to the same level of customisation by just mass producing lugs with a range of angles, using a cheaper process (basically extending what they must have done anyway for all previous lug and tube designs). 3D printing seems a bit of a gimmick in this application.

The whole concept of infinitely customisable geometry is pretty niche for 90% of us anyway. Mike Burrows really challenged the whole idea that a hand built custom geometry frame was the be all and end all when he came up with the idea of small medium and large for Giant. Most bikes will have a few more size options nowadays, but standard sizes with customised posts and stems seems to work fine for most people.

You can't change a single tube length without having to change at least one other tube length and the angles of at least three lugs. Mass produced lugs could never offer the wide range of sizing let alone variations on angles, BB height and so on.

Mass produced lugs could never offer the wide range of sizing let alone variations on angles, BB height and so on.

I think you will find a time comparison and cost between the two will be very similar and the Pi joint was originally pegged mainly for composites

in other news before I left industry (which was composites ) there was a project called SLCOM this was fibre reinforced 3d woven composites and they were pretty bloody indestructable

Or you could have a custom geometry steel bike that looks great and rides fantastically for 1/3 price...

[url= http://www.starlingcycles.com ]www.starlingcycles.com[/url]

is it a bit like this ?

[img] [/img]

Yes, surely you could get pretty close to the same level of customisation by just mass producing lugs with a range of angles, using a cheaper process (basically extending what they must have done anyway for all previous lug and tube designs). 3D printing seems a bit of a gimmick in this application.

Nope.

Lugs were only available for road bikes because they're very expensive to make the molds for, and road bikes are pretty fixed geometry wise (horizontal top tube, 73deg parallel angles, etc) so you only need a very small number of parts to make any kind of frame. There's a couple of degrees of wiggle in each lug to allow slight variations for frame size, or Track Vs touring bikes etc, but that's all.

Builders like Demon frameworks make MTB lugs by brasing bits of oversize tube together, which is nowhere near as strong as an actual lug, but is very pretty.

A mate of mine was 3D printing steel lugs and then getting steel brazed into them. Ended up deciding it was too expensive and too much faff so he's gone to full carbon monocoque.

The concept of tubes and lugs is not new but using the latest manufacturing buzz words and charging crazy high prices does get you press coverage.

Ended up deciding it was too expensive and too much faff so he's gone to full carbon monocoque.

How can a lug be stronger than full carbon anyhow? That's the bit I don't get, or is it the fact that for a custom carbon bike you need to make carbon tubes the same length and cut them to custom size, and then you need to be able to join them?

I assume making carbon tubes and then joining them with carbon fibre doesn't work that well?

3d printed moulds for a custom carbon frame would be nice, but it would look like an off the shelf jobbie, so less headlines than this, so probably less interest.

I've no idea if it was stronger or not, it was just one of the manufacturing avenues he experimented with.

Lots of off the shelf frames are carbon tubes and carbon lugs, especially hardtails where they all use the same rear end. Make 1 rear and glue it to any number of different front ends, over wrap one layer of carbon to make it look nice and you're done.

Carbon Wasp do 3D printed moulds and lay carbon into them, finished product looks really good.

AM lugs and Carbon tubes is quite a good manufacturing idea. As long as the bonds are strong and the double lap joints seems a sensible idea to stop peel.

I think the only technology they've missed a trick with is some topology optimisation. I'm sure they could have come up with some really funky looking organic shapes with a properly optimised solution. This would have added to the aesthetic that I feel this bike is missing a little. To me it looks like all the parts are drawn in CAD from the start.

But I suppose the topology optimisation wouldn't lend itself to customised geometry, a lot of processing for each frame. Although it could have been used for some 'generic' starting blocks.

Good luck to them. I'm sure the design and processes will refine as time goes on.

How can a lug be stronger than full carbon anyhow?

your missing the point its not strongest its whats strong enough to do the job and then keep us out of the internet horror failure stories ,sometimes this is often enough to meet the design requirements (only robot will know THEIR objectives) if your going for stongest thats forged heat treated then machined then heated a bit more and some kind of surface finishing, a wee bit more cost than 3d printing a titanium lug.

theres always been lots of moves in engineering to cut costs, however sometimes people misconsturue removing tooling as a cost saver

if you make a mould and a part that costs 300 notes total part lifecycle then make 1 component that's printed at 300 notes total part lifecycle its still cost you 300 notes and thats where the cost of 3d printing sits at this time its not particularly cheap.

If you work in the industrys where these bits and bobs are becoming common even aerospace parts aren't being used for their strength a lot however do enable parts to be made with less labour for example no welds or fixturing

when the price drops to a level suitable for production and the strength comes up then you will probably find these boxes alongside cnc in a workshop banging out parts, CNC was a novelty 30 years ago and now we have a 5 axis for less than 80k

This illustrates the straight forwards way of doing "custom carbonfibre" quite nicely IMO:

You can do variations on it but that's your basic method there...

I've not seen carbon compressed like that before, very interesting.

Looks like they have a stand at Fort Bill this weekend. If anyone is up there, could you put up a few 'real world' photos of it???

Did anyone at the WC see it - thoughts???