I'm sure it could help in prototyping, but there's no possible way it can compete with production stamping.
They show a stamping facility and say you need rooms of tools to produce just one part. That's not true. The tools/dies can be changed out on those machines (and are often changed out once the order number has been met) to move onto the next part order. A stamping facility could spent an shift making 20,000 parts for Toyota one day, change out all the tools and make another 20,000 of an entirely different part for Whirlpool the next day.
My guess is that this machine could probably make 20 parts a day, with a guy sitting there to manually move the metal in and out, and make the final cuts. Notice they showed the same two to three demos over and over again.
It's a money pitch video. It's also not correctly marketed. This is a prototyping tool. It will never a production tool unless your scale is very small and your prices very high. Maybe a small super car maker who makes 500 of a 1.2 million dollar car?
I'm sure it could help in prototyping
Yes, prototyping and low production runs is the purpose. The upfront cost on tools and dies is rather expensive, especially for anything of the sizes the show.
Machining dies is rather expensive and time consuming.
(post is archived)