Another side covers "WOW" post

Huz-z said:
Hey guys, I saw this over on Zpost today:

https://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1711972
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Interesting to see if > 50 people world wide are interested.
 
BavarianBunker said:
buzyg said:
Huz-z said:
Hey guys, I saw this over on Zpost today:

https://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1711972
Click to expand...
Interesting to see if > 50 people world wide are interested.
Click to expand...

35 as per this morning :roundel: 4/20/2020 at 10 am PDT.
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Great to here you may yet make $millions. Or you may just make a few Zed owners happy, either way a worthy project. :)
 
For what it's worth guys I bought a set intending to get some made in collaboration with a friend who has experience bringing a successful plastic accessory to market. Anyway the considerations on various production methods for what would be a low volume item were,
  • The OEM covers are plastic covered with soft-touch material to match interior. They have a plastic catch that is designed to give and fly off if you pop up the roof. They are quite a complex compound shape
  • Tooling for plastic injection moulding of the core is simply not economic
  • they are slightly too big for most non-commercial 3D printers, even loaded at a diagonal (we tried) even if you can run in a slightly larger unit it takes hours, the materials are far more expensive than you expect and the finish would ideally require the soft touch material to avoid looking crap
  • Commercial 3D production might bring a surface that was acceptable but the cost is prohibitive
  • I've looked at the possibility of small scale casting from silicone hand moulds, you could do a one-off hobby job but that's about it and it still needs covering
All the above ignores the catch. This can be 3D printed but is quite a complex part. Skyer are using a metal catch on theirs to overcome this. I think that's got potential to cause damage to the cover in the vent of a fly-off as the catch presumably won't give like plastic.

Bottom line is that it's not economic to make and sell a small production run of decent OEM quality item for less than the current market values, so I gave up the idea.
 
What about carbon fiber

My carbon kevlar under tray came out ok

For the side covers I would make a mould so as to get the finish required

I have only seen pictures and videos but have a Z (120 miles way due to lock down) but can try and make one.

Does anyone have a cnc router and scanner to make a plug for a mould to save me modelling it

Just ideas
 
Ewazix said:
They are no longer available, I think they were originally £150-200 depending on the country. Someone over on Z-Post was recently moaning that he missed a set in the US that went for $450!
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£95 from my BMW dealer in 2007/2008,with a discount on the rep of around£110 I think
 
Ewazix said:
For what it's worth guys I bought a set intending to get some made in collaboration with a friend who has experience bringing a successful plastic accessory to market. Anyway the considerations on various production methods for what would be a low volume item were,
  • The OEM covers are plastic covered with soft-touch material to match interior. They have a plastic catch that is designed to give and fly off if you pop up the roof. They are quite a complex compound shape
  • Tooling for plastic injection moulding of the core is simply not economic
  • they are slightly too big for most non-commercial 3D printers, even loaded at a diagonal (we tried) even if you can run in a slightly larger unit it takes hours, the materials are far more expensive than you expect and the finish would ideally require the soft touch material to avoid looking crap
  • Commercial 3D production might bring a surface that was acceptable but the cost is prohibitive
  • I've looked at the possibility of small scale casting from silicone hand moulds, you could do a one-off hobby job but that's about it and it still needs covering
All the above ignores the catch. This can be 3D printed but is quite a complex part. Skyer are using a metal catch on theirs to overcome this. I think that's got potential to cause damage to the cover in the vent of a fly-off as the catch presumably won't give like plastic.

Bottom line is that it's not economic to make and sell a small production run of decent OEM quality item for less than the current market values, so I gave up the idea.
Click to expand...

Yeah it is not easy for small quantity. I have some experience in production environment automotive and everything under 5 digits volume is almost prototype like. Yet, because we did development for 'free' and have no margins we can keep the cost down. Cost is around 10k USD for 50 pieces and then we have some assembly so that's why we need 50 to sign up. The quality will be very good with Brian's perfectionism.

10 more to go!!!

We did not have one time it fell off on the floor when we tested but we see that concern. Maybe a piece of string and magnet underneath the cover as backup would do but working on it.
 
BavarianBunker said:
We did not have one time it fell off on the floor when we tested but we see that concern. Maybe a piece of string and magnet underneath the cover as backup would do but working on it.
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The old string and a magnet mod :rofl:

I was genuinely looking at getting these produced but gave up because of low volume production costs and producing something that had an OEM quality finish . One of the solutions to the cover 'flip-off' problem looked at was utilising the roof safety interlock/sensor wiring and fitting a sensor/switch to detect when a side cover is fitted (you would only need one). I'm guessing the BMW covers were an afterthought accessory so BMW never got around to what is the obvious solution. Have that one for free :wink:
 
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